


One Week

by lettered



Series: Wild and Wired [2]
Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Alexis Rose & David Rose - Freeform, Anxiety, M/M, Past Drug Use, Past Underage Sex, Weight Issues, body image issues, gratuitous use of a Barenaked Ladies song, mention of past possible non-graphic animal harm by unnamed parties, past abusive relationships, reference to real life celebrities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-11-07 19:24:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 51,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17966558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lettered/pseuds/lettered
Summary: Every day of the first week of David and Patrick's relationship.





	1. Saturday

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place almost entirely after 4x1 and entirely before 4x2. 
> 
> This can be read as a sequel to my other fic, Wild and Wired, but since that just covers canon, you don't have to read it to get this one.
> 
> 6/13/19 - I have made a minor edit, since in S5 we got a clear view of Patrick's car and it's obviously a Toyota.

Alexis always woke up first, so she had first dibs on the bathroom in the mornings. David didn’t mind; it gave him more time to become human, and the morning after his birthday, he lay in bed thinking about kissing Patrick. They were going to have to _talk about it_ today, which sounded ominous, but David couldn’t even build up a proper anxiety spiral; he was too happy.

“Ew!” said Alexis, who somehow was already done with her full bathroom routine. They’d negotiated it down to a half hour each, which meant she could do hair and makeup in their room while he showered and shaved. “Ew,” Alexis said again. “David, are you dreaming?”

“I’m not now,” David groaned, turning his head in toward the pillow.

“David. _Ew_.”

“What!” he snapped into the pillow.

“You were smiling. In your sleep.”

“I was not,” said David, but he could feel himself smiling into his pillow.

“Yes, you were. You were lying there smiling, and it’s bad enough we have to share a room—”

“I wasn’t smiling,” David said, turning over and throwing off the covers so he could get up.

“Ew, David, you’re smiling right now. I don’t want to see,” Alexis added, putting her hand over her eyes as he stalked toward the shower. “Why are you smiling?”

“I’m not smiling!”

“Yes, you were; something happened!”

“I’m not smiling,” David said, slamming the bathroom door.

“Oh my God, David, yes, you were,” she said through the door. “Something happened! You have to tell me!”

“Nothing happened!” David turned on the water so he wouldn’t have to hear her, and yet she persisted.

“You went out with Patrick for your birthday—didn’t you? I heard about that.”

Steam was filling up the bathroom and David really wanted Alexis to choke on the cake still in the bedroom, but he opened the door enough to stick his head through it anyway. “Where did you hear about that? Literally _no one_ cared what I was doing for my birthday.”

“I cared,” Alexis said, looking offended. “ _You_ didn’t care about coming to my graduation.”

“Nothing happened,” David said, shutting the door again.

“Something happened.”

David ignored her, switching out Alexis’s bathroom products from the bathtub for his, because they couldn’t fit all the necessary products at once. She had to change them back in the morning; it worked okay. The water was almost hot enough, and he started taking off his pajamas.

“David!” Alexis said on the other side.

“Oh my God, I’m going to kill you.”

“Just tell me what happened.”

David stuck his head out of the door again. “I’ll tell you what happened if you leave me alone so I can shower, and not think about you for twenty blissful minutes of my life.”

“Ew.” Alexis’s face contorted. “Don’t open the door with your shirt off!”

“You’ve seen it before.” David slammed the door.

She finally left him alone for long enough to shower and shave, then get dressed, after which she knocked. “I can _hear_ you doing your hair in there; you know what the deal is.”

The deal was that if she had to do her hair and makeup in their room, _he_ had to do his hair and moisturizer in their room so she could go back and do touchups. 

“The deal is off today; today is special,” David said, pinching the ends of his hair and pulling them back.

“No, it’s not. David!”

“Yes, it is.” David rinsed his hands, then threw the door open. “I kissed Patrick.”

Alexis’s mouth fell open. “Oh. My. God.”

“Mm-hm,” David said, sweeping past her, feeling like a million dollars. This leopard-print sweater was really working for him, and the acid-wash jeans. He’d gone with a light color scheme to reflect his future, which was really looking up, and he definitely hadn’t _planned_ on telling Alexis, but one, she would not have stopped bugging him until he told her, because she really did have this incredible intuition he would have envied had he cared what literally anyone else was feeling. And two, he sort of loved telling Alexis, because _he’d kissed Patrick_ , and Alexis was looking at him with delighted shock and a _deets deets deets!_ face, her eyes bright, and she rarely looked at him like that, because he so rarely had gossip. And that was a good thing, except when it wasn’t, like right now, when his gossip was good. His gossip was great. He’d kissed Patrick.

“Oh my God,” she repeated, huddling close to him and following him around, just like Dad always did when he was worried or proud. Dad was often both, these days. Maybe Alexis was both too; David didn’t know. He didn’t really care, because he’d kissed Patrick. “Oh my God, don’t leave me in suspense,” Alexis said. “Tell me!”

“He gave me a ride home last night,” David said, “and I kissed him.”

“On the mouth?”

“Well, we’re in kindergarten, so kissing on the mouth is verboten—yes, on the mouth! Do you think I would be _smiling_ if I’d kissed him on the ear?”

Alexis smirked in triumph. “You were smiling!”

“Because this is a good thing.”

“Are you sure? Did you like—” Alexis did a little thing where she stood on tippy toes to make a kissy face, possibly forgetting that Patrick was actually shorter than him—“kiss him, or did you like—” She threw her head back like a movie star and put her hands up, opening her mouth—“ _kiss_ him, or—” 

“I kissed him,” David said flatly. “I told this to you because you asked; I am not going to _demonstrate_ for you how I—” He stopped because Dad’s voice was rising in the other room, which was never a good sign.

“Well, I don’t quite see the relevance in that question, Moira,” Dad was saying. “The man is dead!”

Alexis’s mouth dropped open, and she looked at David, who looked back at her in horror. She lunged toward the door.

“I mean, we can’t have the other guests finding out a dead body in one of the rooms!”

“Ugh!” David said, coming into their parents’ room behind Alexis.

“Ew!” said Alexis. “There’s a dead body in one of the rooms?”

*

David made the mistake of asking to sleep with Patrick because there was a dead body in one of the rooms, except he somehow failed to lead with the dead body part, only making it as far as asking to sleep with Patrick. This was right after a night of fantasizing how he would treat Patrick well and go so slow, gentle and patient with him while he—while he—while Patrick discovered . . . while Patrick explored . . . while Patrick got what he needed. Luckily, this misunderstanding got cleared up, and Patrick didn’t seem to mind so much.

Patrick had also kissed David on the floor, where through the shop windows anyone walking by could see, and when Patrick had found out that apparently David’s whole family knew about their kiss, he hadn’t seemed terribly upset. Whether he wanted to be open about them hadn’t been exactly clear, but with David’s family knowing it was sure to be all over town, so David had to assume it was okay, though he wasn’t sure what else he should assume.

He shouldn’t assume, for instance, that Patrick would pull him into the stockroom at the end of the day to make out with him, though David had kind of been angling for it.

“Stevie said that the plumber will have come to take the ‘dead’ toilet away by five,” David said at the end of the work day, as Patrick counted out and David packed up the produce to put in the cooler room. “One can only assume that by toilet, she means the . . .” He winced, unable to finish that sentence.

“Corpse?” Patrick said brightly, bending to open the safe behind the counter.

“How is this my life? So anyway,” David continued, just as brightly, “I think I can manage spending the night at the motel after all, but just to be safe, I’ll stick around here until six-twenty at least. Hopefully by then I won’t have to smell any evidence of . . .”

“Corpses?”

“Okay, stop saying that. What I mean is, _I’m_ sticking around.” David looked hintingly at Patrick, who had reappeared above the counter, but now was entering things into the computer. “I’m sticking around,” David repeated loudly. “What are _you_ doing this evening?”

Patrick was suppressing a smile, which probably meant he knew exactly what was going on here, but actually David felt like he couldn’t really be sure, because it was the first day of this, and Patrick wasn’t even looking at him. Instead he was still looking intently at the computer screen and punching keys. “Probably Netflix,” he said. “There’s this baseball documentary I’ve been meaning to watch.”

“I can’t believe I kissed you last night,” said David, because Patrick was _jerking his chain._

Patrick just flattened his lips over a smile, but still didn’t even look over at him. “I kissed you this afternoon. Or did you forget?”

“Oh, I remember,” David huffed, gathering up the vegetable bags and taking them to the cooler room. The cooler room was a vestige of the general store, which had sold a bit more food; it was really just a curtained closet with a refrigerator and freezer, and Patrick wasn’t even _picking up_ on the hint that David would be here and _available_ for—for . . . But Patrick had said just this morning that he wanted to take things slow, and he had also said that David kissing him made him feel like it was his first time, and no one had ever said anything like that to David—not even people for whom it had been their first time. 

David took a breath, then another breath. He put his hands over his mouth; someone had told him once that was good for hyperventilation. He wasn’t hyperventilating. He was just—calming down. Another breath, slower, slower; he could do slow. He could do slow. He could do slow.

When he came out of the cooler room, Patrick was still tapping away at the computer, innocent as could be, and everything about him was so neat and tidy that it made things easier. Patrick made everything easier. “So,” David said, spraying the door window to wipe it down, “baseball. What are you doing after your documentary?”

“Mm,” Patrick said to the computer, which he seemed to like better than David, “don’t think I’ll finish the documentary tonight. It’s fourteen hours long.”

“Okay, wow. I’m revising—several opinions of you.”

“Which ones?”

“Exactly how much of a nerd you are.”

“I’m hurt.”

“Who watches a fourteen-hour baseball documentary?”

“I meant I was hurt you didn’t know how much of a nerd I was before.”

“Yes, well.” David wiped down the window. “Some of us have poor judgment.” The other windows didn’t need washing, but the door window needed it every day, since people were getting their grubby hands all over it. Finished with this, David put away the cleaning supplies behind the register counter.

“I’m about done here,” Patrick said, flicking off the computer monitor as he moved aside so David could tuck the bottle on its shelf.

“Me too,” said David, straightening up. “I just need to—”

Patrick’s hand closed around David’s wrist, then Patrick was pulling David into the stockroom with him. 

“Oh, are we going to—”

Then Patrick pushed him against the work counter and kissed him. “I wanted to do that all day.”

“No one was _stopping_ you.”

“Professionalism was stopping me.”

“Mm.” David gave him a smile he hoped Patrick found really hot. “I don’t like professionalism.” Putting his arms around Patrick’s neck, David kissed him again.

For several moments Patrick kissed him back, lips on David’s, then he drew away. He didn’t say anything, though, and his eyes were still on David’s lips, as though he _wanted_ to devour them. He seemed to be breathing kind of hard; maybe he’d just needed a second, so David kissed him again.

Patrick let him, but he was stiff in David’s arms, and after several moments more, David eased them out of it. “Is this okay?” he murmured against Patrick’s lips, wanting to feel hot and sexy, and so doing his very best not to sound worried out of his mind.

“Yes,” Patrick said thickly. “I want—” Lurching in, Patrick kissed him again, still wound tight like an angry spring, but then his lips parted. David felt the wet of a tongue against his lips, and Patrick was pulling away.

“Oh,” David breathed, because he didn’t really understand why Patrick wouldn’t just put in his tongue if he wanted tongue, but he’d said he wanted slow, and he seemed so—nervous. “Yeah,” David said. “I can . . .” He spread his legs so that he was closer to Patrick’s height, then kissed him again—open-mouthed, with just a little bit of the tongue Patrick had wanted, so Patrick could choose—

Patrick chose. His mouth opened with a hoarse little sound at the back of his throat; he was tentatively licking David’s tongue, and then he was—pushing it in, pushing his tongue in as he pushed David against the counter, rather too hard. It bit into David’s skin and he wished there was a blank wall back here, because that would be better for this type of kissing—this type of kissing where Patrick was pressing in against him, hungry and needy and thrusting his tongue into David’s mouth. Patrick’s hands fumbled at David’s hair, and Patrick was a messy kisser. He had that clean, neat and tidy mouth and he was a messy, messy kisser.

When Patrick finally pulled back, _he_ sort of sounded like he was hyperventilating, breath noisy and harsh, holding onto David’s hair rather too tightly.

David kissed the corner of that perfect mouth, moving down the jaw—surely this was allowed, a little innocent necking, after Patrick had tried to put his tongue down David’s throat like that.

“David,” Patrick gasped, then pulled him in for another terribly filthy kiss.

David hadn’t expected it to be like this. When Patrick had said their first kiss had felt like the first time for him, David had thought Patrick meant, like, in a _sweet_ way, but David was beginning to get the idea that Patrick had maybe meant that but also in a—horny high school kind of way. If Patrick really did prefer men and he’d never gotten to before, never let himself before, then—imagine kissing someone for the first time when you were thirty, never knowing how it was supposed to feel but wanting it your whole life, then finally getting to have it.

The very thought of it made David’s hands go slow on Patrick’s back—long, sure strokes over and over, trying to be reassuring, trying to be soothing. Patrick suddenly seemed young to David, and David felt young too. David hadn’t meant it was his own first time in a horny high school way; _he’d_ meant it in a middle school crush way. Middle school was the last time he’d had a crush on someone not because he was obsessed with having sex with them, but because Sheila had been smart and pretty and talented; he’d been obsessed with just getting to be close to her.

Patrick stopped for breath again, David taking the opportunity to move his lips on Patrick’s jaw again, down to Patrick’s throat. “Fuck,” Patrick said, voice trembling.

“Is it—is it what you wanted?” David murmured against Patrick’s throat. _Am I what you wanted?_

“Yeah,” Patrick breathed. “Yes. Thank you. Yes.”

“Is there more—anything else I can do?”

“No, I just want . . .” One of Patrick’s hands was still in David’s hair, and now his eyes flicked up to it, his expression so naked without that smile on, watching his hand stroked the short hairs on the side of David’s head. His breathing shaky, the fingers came down from David’s head to lightly trace David’s ear, then stroke the spot underneath it.

“Oh,” David breathed, hips bucking. “Um.” He put his lips together as Patrick looked at him in surprise. “Ticklish?” David tried.

“Ticklish,” Patrick said, disbelieving, then put his lips where his fingers had been.

David managed to contain his hips, but it wasn’t going to stop his dick from getting hard, not with the way Patrick kissed him there, then— _nipped him with his teeth_. “I didn’t know we were doing biting yet,” David whispered, trying to justify his undignified little sound, but now Patrick was licking that spot, and David wondered if dry humping counted as “slow.” It—it had been a long time since anyone had kissed him there. There hadn’t been much kissing with Sebastien, nor with Jake either, actually; Jake had been a really hot fuck but hadn’t taken a lot of time to—explore—

Patrick’s mouth moved along David’s jaw, and then he pulled back, touching where his mouth had been. A gentle finger traced David’s jaw, and Patrick looked so open when he wasn’t smiling; too open, and it was killing David, because Patrick was just watching the path of his own finger, intently, too intently.

“Okay,” David said, trying not to sound too pathetic, a feat at which he did not succeed. “Is something—something wrong?”

“What? No.” Patrick took his finger away, meeting David’s eyes, but after a moment his gaze drifted back to David’s jaw. “I’ve never . . .” Patrick kissed David’s jaw again, then with tongue, except—it was weird; Patrick wasn’t kissing him. It was almost like Patrick was just— _feeling_ him, feeling David’s jaw with his tongue, like Patrick was going to make a little map after this, maybe a sculpture, as though he could hold an imprint of texture on his tongue.

David didn’t know what to do. It was weird; it was weirdly intimate.

Patrick pulled back again. “I’ve never kissed anyone with stubble before.”

“Oh,” David said slowly, hand coming up to his face. He’d shaved that morning, but he was generally stippley by the end of the day; he could try a closer shave, but it wouldn’t really—

“I like it,” Patrick said quickly. “I was just—noticing.”

David felt as though his chest was slowly opening, disassembling, as though to make space for Patrick inside of it. “You can notice anything you want,” he whispered.

“Thank you,” Patrick said, his breath catching. “Thank you.” Then Patrick put his mouth under David’s ear again, kissing for real this time—sucking skin into his mouth—

“Okay, but that’s—cheating,” David complained, because he was pretty sure Patrick knew what it was doing to him, and even if he didn’t, the acid-wash jeans were way too tight for this to be happening to his dick. Pulling away from Patrick’s mouth, David caught it with his own, and they were kissing again, Patrick’s hands in David’s hair again, coming down to touch his neck as though he couldn’t stop it.

Then Patrick had a hand at David’s shoulder, the other at the back of his neck, pressing and pulling David back and back to get deeper into the kiss. David squirmed against the counter, trying to adjust to it biting into his back with the way Patrick was bearing into him, while also avoiding too much contact of lower bodies because David was already getting uncomfortably hard, still not knowing whether dry humping was on the table.

“God, sorry,” Patrick said, as soon as David squirmed. “That must be so uncomfortable on your back.”

“Must it?” David said, because he didn’t want to stop, but also because literally no one had ever stopped taking something that they wanted from him because _that must be uncomfortable for you_ , and of course David had never stopped anyone because of it. That would be stupid. Discomfort was a mild price to pay to get off; in fact, David usually _liked_ a bit of discomfort when he got off.

“Can we . . . ?” Patrick had stepped away from him, looking around the stockroom, as though trying to figure out how to make this closet an ideal make-out hangout.

“It’s fine,” David said, pressing his back into the counter harder and squirming, so he could get used to it. 

Patrick glanced back at him. “That’s not fine.”

“Yes, it is,” David said, reaching for him, kissing him.

Kissing him back, Patrick pulled him away from the counter, stepping back so David had to follow. Then Patrick was turning them so that Patrick was the one against the counter, pulling David into him, kissing him. “Yeah,” Patrick said, pulling away from him. “That’s not fine,” he said again.

David could feel his eyebrows rise in a haughty way, even though he didn’t mean to. “It’s literally a counter. No one cares if—”

“I care.” Patrick kissed him again, then pulled back barely enough to breathe. His voice was a whisper when he said, “I’m not going to enjoy it if you’re uncomfortable.”

David’s mouth opened in shock, because he got that Patrick was not experienced with a guy, but what he’d said kind of demonstrated that he was just not experienced in _general_. It would be really, really bad to start dating a thirty-year-old virgin, not because there was anything wrong with that, really, except it would be really bad for _David_ to start dating a thirty-year-old virgin; David could barely remember being a virgin, and even in _high school_ he had—

But Patrick was kissing him again, walking him back into the shelves on the wall perpendicular, which was less of a walk and more of a step, since they were literally in a closet. “Okay,” David said, pulling away—and even that felt dangerous, herded against the shelves as he was. “ _No one_ is going to enjoy it if these shelves collapse and I die.”

“They won’t collapse.” Patrick kissed the spot under David’s ear.

“Okay, you’re trying to distract me? But these shelves are rickety.”

“Then maybe we can go slower.” Patrick’s mouth moved down David’s throat, now, and—okay, Patrick probably wasn’t completely inexperienced. He didn’t exactly kiss like someone who hadn’t kissed before, except when he was doing his weird exploring-David’s-stubble thing, and in retrospect, that had been kind of hot. Now Patrick’s mouth was moving on David’s throat in a hot, pleasant, _teasing_ way; it was teasing, but that was because Patrick had stopped going at it so hard. He was no longer pressing into David, gentle now instead, giving him space.

It was sort of sad, because David didn’t like space. He loved being crowded up against a good wall; he liked being slammed into them. He really just liked being slammed around in general, except he got the feeling Patrick wouldn’t like it. It wasn’t _nice_. How did one be _nice?_ How did one go around saying _I’m not going to enjoy it if you’re uncomfortable_ ; that wasn’t a real thing.

Patrick pulled away from his throat. “Are you really that concerned about the shelves?”

“Um,” David said faintly. “Kind of.”

Kissing him again, Patrick turned them around once more, so now Patrick was against the shelves. “They’ll collapse on me, now,” he said, then went on kissing him.

It was nice.

It was super nice, sure, but there wasn’t any more of that filthy, desperate kissing from Patrick now. Patrick had gotten used to it, and his kisses were nice, now. Patrick was licking David’s lips. Sucking on the bottom one. Slowly sweeping his tongue inside to lick David’s teeth, pulling back again to tease, sweeping in again for a long stroke against David’s tongue. Learning David’s mouth, and Patrick had definitely kissed before. It was warm and wet and lazy, the gentlest thing, soft. Nice.

David had only ever been kissed like this after someone had fucked him. _He’d_ only ever kissed like this after he’d been fucked. He tried to remember—maybe when he was high, he kissed like this? And it was nice, just so fucking _nice_ , except he really just wanted—he’d tasted Patrick’s desperation, and he wanted Patrick to kiss him like _that_ , like David was the best kiss he’d ever had, like Patrick couldn’t fucking get enough of David’s sloppy, sloppy mouth.

David wanted to be pushed up against a wall; he wanted to be uncomfortable; he wanted to be taken advantage of. He wanted Patrick to take advantage of him, stop worrying about whether he was comfortable—hurt him, maybe, except that was taking it a little far, and they were supposed to be taking this slow; what was wrong with him? Something was wrong with him.

Finally releasing David’s mouth, Patrick breathed, “Where have you been all my life?”

And David, because he was David and he was fucked up and something was wrong with him, automatically said, “Getting wasted in high-end clubs with movie producers and pretentious art dealers.”

Patrick just huffed a laugh. “Okay, I didn’t actually need you to be honest just now.”

“I didn’t need me to be honest either, honestly.”

Patrick still seemed amused, smiling at David with his _you’re ridiculous_ smile, then putting his hands on David’s shoulders and stroking down his arms, down to David’s hands. Looking down, Patrick brought one of David’s hands up with, holding it with one of his own, stroking it with the other, leaning down to kiss it.

What was he _doing_ , David thought desperately, because it was so intimate he wanted to crawl out of his skin. They were supposed to be making out, not—not _hand_ kissing; no one did hand kissing; it wasn't a thing.

“I always thought these looked so good on you,” Patrick murmured, then started to kiss one of David’s rings before David snatched his hand away.

Patrick looked up at him in startlement.

“S-sorry,” David said, breathing too hard, giving Patrick back his hand. “Sorry, you can—you can keep doing that. You can say that again.”

Patrick held David’s hand, but he didn’t kiss it, his mouth instead folding into a smile. “Can I? Do you like that?”

“Yes,” David breathed. “It’s—it’s generally preferred.”

Patrick leaned in, as though to kiss him, but when his lips were on David's he said, “Generally preferred?”

David pressed his eyes closed tightly, not wanting to reveal how desperately he wanted it, humiliated because of how desperately he wanted it, which did not actually make him want it less desperately. “Mm-hm,” he said, nodding his head. “You can—talk about it all you want.”

“Talk about what?” Patrick said, his lips just brushing David’s as he talked. “How good you look?”

“Mm-hm.” David’s eyes were still shut tightly. “You can say more,” he managed to say without a whimper.

Patrick pulled back. “Sometimes I look into your eyes and want to fall into them.”

David cracked an eye open to see Patrick’s smirk. “Okay, but now you’re making fun of me.”

“I mean. You make it so easy.”

“It’s just—I don’t get many compliments.”

“Mm-hm,” Patrick said, sounding like he was humoring him.

“I don’t,” said David. “Especially from people I’m—” _fucking_ , he was going to say, except they weren’t fucking; they weren’t anywhere close to it. Dating? Were they dating? What was this, actually, except that David didn’t want to know. He didn’t want to have to _think_ about labels; God, he hated them.

“People you’re what?” Patrick said, because he was a provocateur.

“Kissing.”

“Mm-hm,” Patrick said, because he was _still_ a provocateur. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“But also you could—do it more. Right now.”

“Do what?” Patrick murmured, his mouth moving over David’s stubble again while his hands stroked David’s.

“Um, just say . . . things . . .”

“Say things.” Patrick switched to David’s other cheek. “What kind of things?”

“Just—things. You like. About me.”

“Sure,” Patrick breathed, stroking his hand some more. “I will. Sometime. But we’re taking it slow.” He was the _worst_ provocateur.

“Okay,” David said, only whining a little, “I can—I can do that. Contrary to popular rumor, I don’t fall to my knees and suck cock the second someone breathes on me nicely.”

Patrick pulled away from him. A long, taut moment stretched between them. “Popular rumor?” he said at last—ironically, but it sounded forced.

“Yeah, I shouldn’t have said that part.” David thought back over what he’d said. Nicolai had made that joke about David and cock-sucking when they’d been going out; it hadn’t been funny, but Nicolai had been kind of right. “Actually,” David said, swallowing. “I shouldn’t have said any of that; I didn’t mean I wanted to suck your—well . . .” He kind of really did want to suck Patrick’s cock; in fact, it crossed his mind that sucking it _right this second_ would actually be an excellent way to avoid this conversation. “I mean, I didn’t—I don’t.”

“David.” Patrick put his hands on his shoulders and pushed him away, and as though that wasn’t enough—it really wasn’t; David was very solid—Patrick turned them again so he wasn’t trapped against the shelves, then put as much space between them as possible.

“I’m aware,” David said, trying to be clear, “that now that that is something I said, that I shouldn’t have said it. It wasn’t slow.”

“It’s okay,” said Patrick.

“I've never done this before.”

“I haven’t either.”

“No,” David said. “I have _literally_ never done this before; I’ve never waited for anyone bef—”

“It’s not meant to be waiting; it’s meant to be slow.”

“No one’s ever wanted me enough to go slow! We usually fuck for three weeks straight until they get bored of me, and that’s enough, and—I get the fact that I just said that to you is not by any means slow, but I am saying that I want—I want—I stayed up half the night thinking about how it wouldn’t be like that with you and that I could take time with you because I _want_ to take time with you; you deserve time; I want to give you—give you time.” David heaved for breath while Patrick just stood there, smiling a little.

“Okay,” Patrick said, after another long moment.

“ _Okay?_ ” David said, waving an arm wildly. “What, out of anything I just said, was okay?”

“All of it.”

David just stared at him, because Patrick had always reacted calmly to David’s outbursts, but now that they were—kissing—David had assumed it would be different. He didn’t know why it would be different; maybe because he was shouting at Patrick about how terrible all of his past relationships had been? Patrick still just looked so calm.

“Except for people getting bored of you,” Patrick said. “Annoyed, yes. Sick of you, maybe. Ready to kill you, probably.”

“Mm kay,” David said, because speaking of annoying.

“But bored? Can’t really see it.”

Patrick was smiling, and the part that David hated was he knew what Patrick needed. Patrick needed to make out for a while, then a few days until second base, then maybe another week until third, weeks—too long—before home; that was what Patrick needed. It was the full extent of what David knew about baseball, but he did know it; he knew it. He just couldn’t seem to stop things from coming out of his mouth, but he could do better than this. He could do better than this for Patrick, who was still holding his hand.

“I don’t expect you to know where my boundaries are,” Patrick said. “I don’t expect you to do everything perfectly. I expect you to try. You’re really good when you try.”

David caught his breath.

Patrick went on, “And I don’t want to make you wait—”

“You’re not making me—”

“Let me finish.” David’s mouth snapped shut. “I mean, like I said this morning, that I know you’ve been with a lot of people—”

Which was why it was so _great_ David had just been talking about what a slut he was, except David managed to not say this out loud, forcing himself to try to listen.

“—so I get that this is not what you are used to, and that it may be annoying or frustrating, but this is what I need. And I think if we listen to each other and respect each other, we can eventually get there, and—and I think we can make it work.”

“It’s not frustrating!” David said, because he was too frustrated to hold it in any longer.

Patrick looked at him blankly.

“It’s hot! I think it’s hot! I want to do it; I want to take a million years!”

Patrick stared at him, then swallowed. “A million years?”

“Not that long, because I just told you that I hardly ever make it past three weeks.” 

“I think we could make it past that.”

David didn’t know what to say, because Patrick had somehow _missed_ the part where David had said he wanted this, that he _wanted_ to take his time, that being careful sounded amazing to him because he’d never been careful of anyone, and no one had ever been careful of him. “I’m not frustrated,” he said.

“Oh,” said Patrick.

“I want to go slow too,” David said.

“Because it’s hot,” Patrick hazarded.

“That wasn’t—quite the word I was looking for. I tend to use—very charged language, when I get—when I’m kissing someone.”

Patrick’s lips twitched. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“Well. Now you know.”

Patrick’s lips twitched again, and then he was just full on smiling.

“Okay, I’m getting the impression now that you’re laughing at me.”

Patrick laughed. “Nope.”

“Then can you tell us the joke, please, because I’m feeling a little . . . fragile? After all this emotional discourse.”

“Oh, do you want me to comfort you?” Patrick leaned in.

“Yes.”

Patrick kissed him. “How’s that? Is it comforting?” He kissed him again, then pulled back.

“A little.”

Patrick kissed him some more. “You know,” he said, pulling away again. “I find it really interesting that I’m comforting _you_ , when I’m the one who is exploring, like, a _whole new sexuality_ —” 

“I thought it might be more comforting for you to comfort me.”

“Oh, you did?”

“So you don’t have to focus on your own problems.”

The smile fell away. “It’s not a problem,” Patrick said.

“Okay. Are you sure?” David gently moved his cheek against Patrick’s. “Even with this stubble?”

“I’m thinking you’re not clear on how much I like that stubble. Let me show you.” Patrick kissed him again.


	2. Sunday

When David got to the store the next day, Patrick was not there.

“Where are you?” David texted.

“It’s my day off,” Patrick texted back. “Or did you forget my schedule?”

 **David:** No I just thought you would be here

 **Patrick:** Why?

 **David:** Idk I just thought you would be here 

David helped a customer, then went back to his phone, where there were no new texts from Patrick.

 **David:** Do you want to come by after work?

 **Patrick:** What for?

Patrick was just so _sassy_ , and David tried not to smile because it was cute, since it should annoy him, really. This thing was new, and _Patrick_ was the one who kept saying that it was new; he should know better than to leave things hanging like this on the _third day_. Just as David was formulating a snarky reply, however, the bell above the door rang, and David had to go “be present” for the customer. When the customer had gone (David had sold her the eye cream and moisturizer), David found another message from Patrick.

 **Patrick:** J/k I got us reservations at Lucy’s Place in elmdale. 6.30

Okay so Patrick wasn’t that sassy. He couldn’t even leave his sass there long enough for David to respond to it, which was cute, really. David texted back, “Fancy,” and left his phone for a while, disappointed that when he returned there wasn’t a new message.

 **David:** I don't have the car

 **Patrick:** I'll pick you up. Motel?

 **David:** Pick me up here  
**David:** You could come in for a few minutes

 **Patrick:** I'll just honk the horn and wait outside

God he was _so_ sassy. David had to deal with customers for almost two hours, but when he came back to his phone he texted, “Classy.”

 **Patrick:** That took a while.

 **David:** I'm sorry I'm WORKING at OUR store. Did you want me in the back sexting you all day?  
**David:** Sorry I shouldn't have texted sexting

 **Patrick:** Get to work

David spritzed the vegetables, restocked the hand cream, and helped three customers. When he got back to his phone, there was nothing.

 **David:** I had fun last night

 **Patrick:** Get to work

That was all. Then, at exactly five o’clock, when David was hurrying to close so he could get ready for Lucy’s Place in Elmdale, he got another text.

 **Patrick:** I did too

*

Patrick really did sit in the car and honk, because he could be kind of a prick, and David didn’t care; he liked that about Patrick. If Patrick hadn’t had edges David would’ve eaten him alive; the more that Patrick teased him, the safer David felt.

“You look really good,” David said, slipping into the passenger seat, buckling his seatbelt. Patrick had a horrible sweater on, but he was trying to look dressy-cas, and David appreciated it, because he appreciated Patrick, and Patrick was hot. Even trying to look dressy-cas, he looked hot. Patrick was hot.

“Thanks,” said Patrick, pulling out once David was buckled in.

“You look really good too, David,” David said falsely. “I can tell you went to extra effort today.”

Patrick looked skeptical. “I feel I’ve got to be careful giving you compliments? Because you might blow me while I’m driving, and that’s how car accidents happen.”

David looked at him in shock. “That was really inappropriate.”

“Never blow me while I’m driving, David,” Patrick said, just like this was a perfectly normal thing to come out of his mouth. He was looking straight forward at the road, his hands on the wheel like a boy scout, except he wore that little smirk. “I won’t like it.”

David still felt shocked. “ _Someone_ thought a lot about things I said last night.”

“Yep.”

“Okay,” David said slowly. “So . . . the hopeful dream I had that you would just forget all that . . . ?”

“Less likely to happen than other hopeful dreams.” 

David reared back, disgruntled. “Now you’re teasing me.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, I am almost always teasing you.”

“Oh, I’ve _noticed_.”

“Don’t tell me about your hopeful dreams, David.” Patrick glanced away from the road for just one moment, swallowing another smile. “Want to know why?”

David was uncomfortably certain he was being set up for a punch line, but he couldn’t give up the concern that maybe Patrick was outlining another boundary of their relationship, so he sighed, then took the bait. “Okay. Why?”

“Because we’re going slow.” Patrick was laughing.

“This is _literally_ under the speed limit,” said David.

Patrick deliberately took his foot off the accelerator.

“Oh my God, we’re never going to get there.”

Patrick just laughed.

*

“What are we doing after this?” David asked as the waitress led them to their table.

“We haven’t even been seated yet,” Patrick said.

The waitress put them at a spot near the window in the corner, which was very nice, though the tables were laminate, which was less nice. Lucy’s Place had a good reputation—even though it was Greek, which maybe the name of the restaurant should have indicated. Anyway, it was nicer than Café Tropical, mostly because it was in Elmdale, and the menus were a normal size.

“Okay we’ve been seated,” David said. “What are we doing after this?”

“Thank you,” Patrick told the waitress. “We need a little time to look at the menus.”

She disappeared, and David said, “We can’t go back to my place. I share a room with my sister.”

“So you’ve said,” said Patrick, who was perusing the menu.

“And my parents are liable to break in any minute,” David added.

“Break in? Like through the lock?”

“There’s not a lock.” The cutlery was the cheap kind David didn’t like to hold in his hands.

“Between hotel rooms? Have you talked to Stevie about that?”

“It’s a whole thing,” said David, sipping the water. There was too much ice, but the glasses were nice. “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”

“There are all kinds of things I don’t want to know, and yet you tell me anyway.”

“Okay, so can we go to your place after?”

“Oh, you want to tell _Ray_ things he doesn’t want to know?” Patrick took a sip of his water, then returned to looking at the menu. “He probably wants to know them, actually. You and he seem to share a penchant for sharing personal information.”

“Ray.”

“Yep.” 

David’s head spun as he tried to process this. “How did _Ray_ become a part of this conversation?”

“When you asked about going to my place.”

“Wait a minute; hold the phone. You live with Ray?”

“Pretty sure that’s where I met you. I rent a room in his house.” Patrick just kept sipping his water, looking at the menu like everything was normal, except everything was _not_ normal, because he lived with _Ray_. “Why are you looking at me like that?” Patrick asked, finally lowering his menu.

“Because you’re _not_ Bill Gates.”

“Nope.” Patrick smiled apologetically. “No, pretty sure I’m still Patrick Brewer.”

“Patrick Brewer that invited me over when my sister had lice, Patrick Brewer.”

“That’s the one yeah.” Finally seeming to grasp the gravity of all of this, Patrick began to look uncomfortable.

“Where did you expect me to sleep?”

“Ray has a pull-out sofa.”

“You wanted me to sleep on Ray’s pull-out sofa. In Ray’s living room?”

“Maybe I would be on the pull-out sofa, and you would be in my bed?”

“In your bed. At Ray’s.”

“I didn’t exactly think it through!” Patrick finally exploded. “I didn’t want you to get lice.”

“You did, however, want me to sleep at Ray’s.”

“Hey, _I_ sleep at Ray’s!”

“But not on a pull-out sofa.”

“You don’t have to sleep on the pull-out sofa! You’re not sleeping at Ray’s!”

“Yet.”

Patrick starting going pink.

“I didn’t mean it that way,” David said quickly.

Patrick pressed his lips together. It was to contain a smile, but it was sort of his incredulous smile, the one he did when David was a vain selfish asshole.

“I really, really didn’t mean it that way,” David protested. “I was just trying to find a place where we can comfortably make out.”

Patrick’s brows went up. “Maybe we could decide what we’re eating first? It seems more imminent than making out.”

“Oh, I already decided what I’m eating.”

“You haven’t even looked at the menu.”

“I Googled the menu.” Patrick looked incredulous again, but this time it wasn’t the one that came out when David was vain and selfish; it was the one that happened when he thought David was—extra. “What!” David said. “I wanted to see if I needed to have Stevie bring me a change of clothes.”

“Did she?”

David tried to shrug as if it didn’t matter. “This place doesn’t really merit couture.”

Patrick was still laughing at him. “But did she?”

“I wasn’t going to go to dinner wearing what I was wearing for work.”

“So, Stevie brought you clothes.” 

“Yes?” said David, because Patrick was even beginning to _sound_ incredulous now.

“Just out of the goodness of her heart.”

It wasn’t really fair that Patrick knew him so well. “I . . . may have given her a free sample of the tapenade.”

“David.”

“It was going to go bad! Anyway, Stevie has so little class in her life, she has to get it somewhere.”

“Do you say that kind of thing about me when I’m not around?”

“What kind of thing?” David said, feigning innocence.

The waitress came and took their order. Patrick didn’t order alcohol, so David didn’t either, then the waitress was sweeping up their menus and moving away.

“So,” Patrick said, putting his elbows on the table and sounding rather ominous. “Now that we are officially dating—”

“Are we official?” David asked, tilting his head at him. “Because I noticed you didn’t call this a date.”

Patrick rolled his eyes. “You knew this was a date.”

“But I didn’t know, on my birthday.”

“I know,” said Patrick. “You invited Stevie. Unless you invite Stevie on all your dates.” His brows rose as he looked around the restaurant. “Should I have them set another place?”

“No, Stevie’s not coming,” David said, because Patrick was dodging. “How come you didn’t tell me my birthday was a date?”

“Wait.” Patrick looked innocent. “That was a date?”

“That’s what Stevie told me.” Patrick was _dodging_ , dodging, and David wasn’t about to let him get away with it. “How come you didn’t tell me?”

The teasing fell away, but Patrick still looked like he wanted to dodge. “I—I was nervous.”

David suppressed a smile, because this was the sort of thing he wanted to hear—how much Patrick liked him, how it had overcome every doubt. “About what?”

“That—well, maybe that you would say no,” said Patrick, which was not exactly what David had been expecting. “I thought—it felt like we were flirting, kind of, but you kind of . . . do that with everyone.”

“Flirt?” said David, shocked. Then again, he’d been called a tease many times before.

“Oh, come on, you know you do,” Patrick said. “You’re very . . .”

David waited for it: flamboyant. Showy. Slutty. Gratuitous.

“Charming, if you want to be,” Patrick said at last.

David began to smile.

Patrick rolled his eyes. “Come on.”

“Charming,” said David.

“It wasn’t a compliment, David!”

“What was it, an insult?”

“Possibly!”

David tried to push his smile off his face. “You really didn’t think I would say yes?”

“I’d never . . .” Patrick ground his teeth, his lips still parted, slightly. David was learning to know this look; Patrick was working up courage, and it made him look so tense and hot, brittle, almost, in a way that made David no longer amused. “I’m from a small town,” Patrick said, moving the cutlery on the table in a fidgety way. “I haven’t known all that many people who were . . . out, and it—”

“Oh,” David said quickly. “I don’t—we don’t need to do this here,” he said, not just because of how strained Patrick looked, but because David had started this conversation because he thought it would be funny, because he had wanted to hear that Patrick wanted him too much to resist. He hadn’t meant to ask for Patrick’s life story; he certainly hadn’t asked to hear about Patrick being closeted. David didn’t like the thought of that; he didn’t like stories like that. The thought of someone like Patrick being locked up and alone and tortured was too much for David. It was too much. David didn’t want to deal with it; he didn’t like life stories, especially his own.

“No,” said Patrick. “I think—I’m not sure you really understand. Me. Yet. So, I think maybe we should do this.”

David desperately did not want to do this. “Okay,” he whispered.

“I think I’m—I’m going to get a beer.” Patrick looked around for their waitress, standing up when he didn’t see her. “Do you want anything?”

“Pinot Gris.”

“I thought you liked red?”

David closed his eyes. “I like everything,” he gritted out, because he really didn’t want to think about that conversation with Stevie, not right now. “Except beer. Beer is disgusting.” 

Patrick disappeared to go find the waitress. 

David didn’t like this. He hated it, really. He had never had real internal difficulty with his sexuality. It had been confusing, early on, that literally every type of person turned him on, but it had been—really obvious, and therefore easy to accept. It was everything else that was weird and difficult, all the social conventions and too many _feelings_. Sex was easy. Everything around it often made him desperately uncomfortable; trying to navigate relationships was a nightmare, but wanting to have sex and who he wanted to have it with was simple. 

This seemed to be too much for people; _David_ was too much for people. He found talking about it tiresome; he had heard a thousand stories like Patrick’s.

Except that it was Patrick, and there was no one like Patrick. No one in the history of David, and said history had been varied and extremely colorful.

Patrick came back to the table, picking up the napkin from his chair and placing it neatly on his lap. “I got you the Pinot Gris,” he said, and David sort of wanted to hold him. 

Not in a sexy way, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt that about someone who wasn’t Patrick. Maybe Alexis. The most David could do, however, was hold Patrick’s hand, except Patrick was literally about to start talking about how admitting his sexuality had been hard for him, so taking his hand in the middle of a restaurant was probably a bad idea. David put his hand out on the table, palm down, so it wouldn’t look like he was reaching for him, but so it was there if Patrick wanted it.

Apparently, Patrick wanted it. Reaching out, he picked up David’s hand, putting it in his own. His thumb ran over the back of David’s hand, and David’s chest felt as though it was physically expanding. He thought he might have bruised ribs, just from dating Patrick.

“You grew up in a small town,” David reminded him.

“Yeah. And there just weren’t—easy ways to experiment. I actually went—I _went_ to bars. I mean, gay ones.”

“Yes, okay,” David said, because he knew, and Patrick could skip it.

“I had to Google them. In college, I Googled them, and I went to some—just to see; I didn’t know, but I thought I might—but when—when I’d get there, I’d feel sick; it made me feel—”

“Okay,” David said again, closing his eyes tightly and pressing Patrick’s hand, because Patrick could really, really skip this.

“It turned my stomach. I’m like that with girls too, so I thought maybe that was just—how I was.”

“Girls?” David opened his eyes.

“I found it—difficult—if I didn’t know them.” Patrick ground his teeth together, looking so uncomfortable. His thumb brushed over David’s hand some more, and Patrick looked down at it, as though he gained courage from that. “But maybe that was because—I don’t know.”

“Here we go, Pinot Gris and a Sam Adams,” said the waitress, and Patrick’s hand pulled out of his. The waitress put their drinks down, told them their food would be ready soon, then went away.

“Okay,” David said, eyeing Patrick’s beer. “It’s not Bud Lite, but I thought you’d at least have a microbrew.”

“What makes you think Elmdale has microbrews?” Patrick said, sipping his beer.

“Because it’s not Schitt’s Creek?”

“It’s is not therefore a Mecca of beer.”

David grimaced. “I really don’t think _Mecca_ is a Mecca of beer either.” He tried his wine, which was about as terrible as the Café Tropical; the Rose Apothecary wine was _tremendous_. Why did no one in these parts go _local_ ; everybody was getting wine from like, New Zealand, when they had good stuff _right here_. “Were you going to talk about girls some more?”

“Is that a problem for you?”

“No. Why would it be?”

“I don’t know,” Patrick said, frowning a little frown.

David didn’t like it when Patrick frowned.

“You’re sort of acting like this whole conversation is painful.”

“I’m not,” said David, even though he was. “I’m—you’re sincerely talking about feelings. On our second date.” 

“I’m sorry.” Patrick shook his head, smiling. He didn’t seem upset. “I should have guessed it would be too much.”

“It’s not too much.”

“It—kind of is. Cheer up. I’m rarely sincere.”

“I know,” said David, and _saying_ this was painful, but he said it anyway. “I like it when you’re sincere,” he said, because it was true. It was really true—Patrick had told him that kissing him had felt like his first time when he was sincere; he had told him he’d never kissed a guy before when he was being sincere; he had told him he was glad he’d invested in David’s business when he was being sincere; he had told David he was going to get him grant money when he was being sincere. That was the first time David had wanted Patrick to fuck him, which in this strange new world of _going slow_ meant that had been the first time David had wanted Patrick to date him; David had wanted it for a long time, all because of that single moment of seriousness, of sincerity.

Fuck. David was so fucked.

“No, but it’s enough for tonight,” said Patrick. “We’ll save it for another time.”

“No,” David said, hating this. “I—I really want to hear your story. Please.”

“I’m not trying to get you to beg me.” 

“Um,” David said, tilting his head. “Well, I’ve heard some people like it.”

“Oh, do you beg a lot of people, David?”

The way Patrick said that so evenly, with that blasé look on his face, just sipping his beer—it was really, really devastatingly hot, and it was so easy to imagine Patrick making him beg. “Um.” David swallowed hard. “No?”

Patrick smiled, then sipped his beer.

It was the sort of restaurant that had brought a bottle and a cold pint glass, but Patrick hadn’t poured his beer in the glass. David wished Patrick had, so he wouldn’t have to watch Patrick’s lips wrap around the bottle. “Mm-kay,” David said, looking steadfastly away. “You never told me where we’re going after this.”

“I thought you wanted to chat with Ray?”

“I’m really missing you being sincere.”

“Sincerely, David,” Patrick said, setting down his beer, “if we go to my place you are going to have to talk to Ray. A lot. He talks a lot.”

“I’ve experienced this,” David said. “More than I would like.”

“I thought I’d just drop you off at the motel.”

“Uh-huh.” David tapped his knife against the stem of his wine glass. “So you didn’t want to . . . ?”

“What?”

“Are you sure you don’t want to be sincere? This is really killing me.”

“I’m not sure where I would be sincere with you,” Patrick said. “You already said we can’t at the motel.”

“I did kiss you in your car,” David pointed out.

“Are you currently planning to make out with me in my car? Is that really what we’re doing right now?”

“Well, you did say blowing you there was out of the question.”

Patrick snorted in amused surprise, after which the amusement apparently won out, for Patrick was trying to shake his head at him but couldn’t, because he was laughing. He put down his beer to laugh out loud, and David felt very proud that he had made it happen, even though he had kind of been serious. Patrick usually didn’t break like this, and David added a point for himself on his mental scoreboard. Then Patrick recovered and said, “This isn’t how I imagined ‘slow’ going.”

“Sorry,” David said, not feeling as sorry as he probably should after having made Patrick laugh like that.

“It’s okay,” Patrick said. “I knew you had a sloppy mouth when I asked you on this date.”

David’s jaw dropped open in delighted surprise, and Patrick sipped his beer.

*

“I am still impressed with Lucy’s Place.” They were in the car after finishing dinner, David fiddling with Patrick’s radio, because for some reason Patrick didn’t have blue tooth like a real person so David couldn’t sync his phone to it, and the CD Patrick had in the player was Mumford & Sons. Like why was David even _here_. “Good job, incorrectly named Greek restaurant.”

“Is there a reason you thought it _wouldn’t_ be good?” Patrick asked.

David wanted to mention Patrick’s taste in clothing with the Mumford & Sons CD as a colorful, supplemental example, but he managed not to. Instead he gave up on local stations, which he should have known to do five minutes ago, and turned the radio off. “Did I mention the name? Can you drop me off up the road when we get to the motel?”

“You still think we’re going to make out in this car.”

“Are you telling me you don’t want to make out?”

Patrick glanced at him, then steadfastly turned back to the road. He was turning pink, but he was also smiling. “You don’t want your family to see us kissing?”

“Um, no, I don’t want my family making fun of me for the rest of my life for necking in a car like a teenager.”

“Is that how we’re going to neck? Like teenagers?”

“I would _show_ you how we’re going to neck, but you _seemed to indicate_ that such activities were _prohibited_ while you were driving.”

“I did indicate that, yes.” Patrick glanced at him again. “And I meant it, don’t get any ideas.”

“I’m not getting ideas.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not. I already _have_ ideas, and I neck like an adult, thank you.”

“Yeah,” Patrick said quietly. “You do.” He looked at the road, and David thought about the night before, how he’d thought that Patrick kissed him sort of like a horny teenager. 

Patrick couldn’t know that David had thought that, though. David had kept his mouth shut about that. He hadn’t been able to keep his mouth shut about cock-sucking or fucking loads of people, but he’d kept his mouth shut about how fucking trite it was that Patrick liked Mumford & Sons and about Patrick’s inexperience. Hadn’t he? Fuck. 

David couldn’t even really imagine what it felt like for Patrick, to go so long without something he wanted. David had never really been without something he wanted at all before—until he moved to Schitt’s Creek, where his family didn’t have health insurance, and he couldn’t get the _hefty_ stack of meds he’d been taking for anxiety, not to mention the _ample_ supply of illegal substances he could get whenever he couldn’t handle life. David had been in withdrawal for months when they’d first moved here. So had Alexis. So had Mom. Dad hadn’t; Dad had never had any drugs. Dad was like a perfect—man-person in his excellent suits with his excellent aftershave. Patrick probably also didn’t take drugs. Patrick had probably never even had, like, something innocent like LSD; he was also a perfect man-person, despite the fact that his suits were anything but excellent. 

“I’ve learned to get worried whenever you’re this quiet,” Patrick joked.

“I’m just thinking.”

“About what?”

 _About how perfect you are_. David didn’t say it, because he didn’t actually mean it in a good way. “You didn’t finish your story,” David said, without knowing he was going to say it.

“What?”

“About Googling gay bars and girls.”

“Was that was that story was about?”

“You didn’t finish it.”

“It’s still our second date,” said Patrick. “I’m not going to burden you with all of that.”

“Maybe I want you to burden me.”

“That’s really nice, David. I don’t believe you, and also, I don’t want to.”

“Why?” David turned toward him, which was awkward in this terrible sedan. “You don’t think I can handle it?”

Still looking at the road, Patrick pushed his teeth together, mouth open the way it was when he got a little tense. “I think you can handle it,” he said, after a moment. “I think you could probably handle—any coming-out story tossed your way; you’ve probably heard a lot of them.”

But David hadn’t actually _said_ that to Patrick, had he?

“It’s me; _I_ don’t want to handle it, not right now. I just want to . . . enjoy this, with you, right now, because—you make it feel easy. You make me—really confused about why it was ever hard.”

David swallowed the lump of fire in his throat. “That was really nice.”

Patrick smiled at the road, a fold of his lips. David was looking at Patrick in profile, a profile that could have been of a Roman statue—a young Augustus. Augustus started young—sweet-faced, some Roman who was probably flaming gay had written once, and Augustus had commanded an empire. Maybe David was thinking of Alexander, but Alexander was too awful to compare to Patrick, and Patrick was prettier. He was prettier than statues and old dead emperors, and something was beating on top of David’s heart, like a bird attempting to fly out of his throat. That was gross. “Are you sure I can’t kiss you while you’re driving?”

“I’m sure.” Patrick smiled, but then he put his hand on David’s thigh.

Oooh, thigh-touching. That was new.

Patrick had really unimpressive hands. Square palms and short blunt fingers and poorly cared-for cuticles. His nails were neatly trimmed, but could have used shaping; he could have used more moisturizer for his knuckles—

“Okay, what are you doing?” Patrick said, drawing his hand out of David’s hand, which had been stroking Patrick’s, running fingers between his fingers, caressing the webbing between.

“What?”

“That is the dirtiest thing anyone’s ever done to my hand.” Patrick’s hand was back on the steering wheel, ten and two, just like Mother never used to do.

“I could do much dirtier things with it.”

“I don’t want to know!” Patrick’s whole face was red.

“I didn’t even realize I was doing it.”

Patrick looked at him, taking his eyes off the road for more than just the momentary flicker David had been subjected to so far. “You’re serious,” Patrick said, surprised. Turning back to the road, he shifted in his seat, and David’s mouth fell open.

Patrick was _shifting in his seat_ —just because David had _stroked his hand_. Patrick really was just like a teenager, and the thing with its claws on David’s heart beat its wings wildly. It kind of hurt, oh God. How long until they could be kissing? Elmdale was nearly forty-five minutes from Schitt’s Creek, and all of eight minutes had passed so far.

Another minute passed, too long. David was starting to think maybe he could stomach Mumford & Sons after all, when Patrick shifted again. His color had gone down. “I did have a question,” Patrick said, putting on his turn signal as he turned from Elmdale South onto Shetland Trail, even though _no one_ else was on the road. “It’s sort of—related. I mean, it’s not really a second date question; it’s probably too personal. But with us—officially dating, I thought—I wanted to ask.”

“This sounds _very_ sinister.”

Patrick glanced at him. “Did you ever date Stevie?”

“What? No.”

“Okay. Because when I moved here, people—talked about you. They said you seemed gay, but that you dated “Stevie at the motel,” and they kept saying it like a contradiction, but I assumed Stevie was a guy, so I was confused about—”

“Why were they talking to _you_ about _me_ when you moved here? You didn’t know who I was! Was this—Ray?”

“Ray, and—other people.”

“ _Cindy_? Because I still don’t know who that is.”

“You should meet my friends, eventually. I have so many of them. So, you didn’t date Stevie?”

David’s first instinct was to deny it again, because after all he _hadn’t_ dated Stevie, and the rest wasn’t anyone’s business, and it was mortifying that the whole _town_ was talking about him to strangers. Of course, David had known that was the way this town was; what else interesting besides the antics and adventures of Roses was there to discuss in that sad little place, but the entire _community_ taking potshots at his sexuality was just a little much. 

But Patrick wasn’t the whole community. He was just Patrick, who didn’t have his ironic little smile on and looked slightly troubled by this whole business, and David had heard somewhere that honesty was important in relationships. He had literally never tried it with anyone, but if he was going to try it, he would try it with Patrick, who deserved it, because Patrick sounded as though he had struggled just to ask. And when David thought about that, it made sense, because Stevie was David’s friend—his only friend, unless you counted Patrick, and David didn’t want to count Patrick because he wanted Patrick to be—something else. So it made sense that Patrick wanted to know what Stevie was to him.

“You know what, forget I asked.” Patrick turned off Shetland Trail onto Old Mountain Road, which was hilarious since there were no mountains here. “It wasn’t my place.”

“I slept with Stevie,” David said. “I didn’t date her.”

Patrick looked at him, startled, then focused back on the road. “Oh,” was all he said.

“It was a mistake. Right after we first moved here. I was—I got—I was _high_ ,” he said loudly. “I don’t—like her like that, and she got over me very quickly, and there has never been anything else—like that. Between us.”

“Okay,” Patrick said, looking at the road. “Okay. Thank you for telling me.” He looked over at David, then put his hand on his thigh again and squeezed. “Seriously. Thank you.”

“The town thinks I _seemed_ gay?” David asked, even though he knew exactly how he looked. He just—hated Schitt’s Creek for being stereotypical and shallow, for _talking_ about it as if him finding Stevie hot and beautiful was some big _mystery_.

“I figured they were wrong,” said Patrick, “but then you showed up in Ray’s office . . .”

“And _what?_ ” David said, appalled.

Patrick shrugged. “Then I wasn’t sure.”

“Because _you_ thought I _seemed_ gay?”

“David, you were wearing a skirt.”

“I _wasn’t_ wearing a skirt; they’re _pants_ , and so what if I was? That doesn’t tell you _anything_ about a person.”

“I know that.” Patrick pressed his lips together. “Trust me, I know.”

David thought about all of the assumptions he had made about Patrick because of what Patrick wore and knew that he was being a hypocrite. This was why he didn’t like conversations like this; he didn’t understand why everything had to be so complicated. “So you weren’t _sure_ that I was gay? Was that why you didn’t tell me my birthday was a date?”

“Oh, I knew you liked guys. You slept with Sebastian Raine—so I knew that.”

“ _Okay_ ,” David said loudly and very furiously. “Who told you I slept with Sebastian while he was here? Because literally _three_ people know that I did that, and I can’t imagine _any_ of them opening their mouths about it.” Actually, Mom had likely told Dad, because she was _terrible_ at keeping secrets, but that was the kind of secret that he was _pretty_ sure she’d only tell Dad. Moderately sure. A little sure? He was going to _kill_ her if she’d told anyone else, especially because he’d done it _for_ her, and it wasn’t as if Sebastian was going to go around and tell people when he’d been embarrassed like that—would he? Could he? David hated him. 

“No, I’m serious,” David said savagely. “Who told you?”

“Well.” Patrick’s voice was very quiet. “You just did.”

“I—what?”

Patrick’s jaw clenched down hard. “You told me you _used_ to sleep with Sebastien Raine. I didn’t know you slept with him while he was in town. Until now.”

“Oh.” David reviewed his words. Yep—he had—he had said that. “I didn’t mean . . .” But there wasn’t really any saving himself from his outburst, and now Patrick knew. Well, he knew about Stevie too. Maybe it wasn’t that bad.

The car had gone very very silent.

Horribly silent.

Where were Mumford & Sons when you needed them?

“Why would you—do that?” Patrick finally asked. “You said he cheated on you.”

“Um.” David swallowed, because the last thing he wanted was for Patrick to know a single thing about his sordid past; he didn’t want Patrick’s opinion of him to change. “Is this really—your business?”

“No,” said Patrick. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel. “You just seemed so . . . No, you know what?” Patrick pulled off onto a gravel side road. It didn’t even have a charming name, a wood fence along one side of it demarcating a pasture of some kind, except David couldn’t see beyond the fence in the dark. Patrick pulled up onto the grass beside this fence so the car was mostly off the road, then put it in park, killed the engine, and turned on the emergency lights.

Maybe it was that bad.

“You said he—you were _angry_ that day, David. You were so hurt and angry; _why_ would you—why would you sleep with him?” 

“I thought we _just_ agreed this wasn’t your business,” David said, dread like a gathering storm in his gut.

“No, it’s not; it’s really not. I shouldn’t have . . .” Patrick put his hand on the keys like he was going to start the car, but then he didn’t. “It bothers me . . .” He took a shaky breath, turning back to him. “It bothers me that you would let someone like that touch you.”

“Mm, okay,” David said, trying to pretend that this conversation didn’t bother _him_ , that he wouldn’t rather talk about _anything_ than this. “Look, it was before you—you were giving me _no indication_ . . . this is stupid!” David exploded. “Are you—is this something you’re going to do? Interrogate every aspect of my past? If you really want to discuss every person I’ve ever fucked, you’re gonna need a private investigator, because I can’t remember them all.” He clapped his mouth shut, because he’d agreed with himself he wasn’t going to be talking to Patrick about how many people he’d fucked, but here he was talking about it anyway.

“I don’t care,” Patrick said tightly. “David, I don’t care. I asked about Stevie because she’s your friend—here, now. And Sebastien Raine upsets me because—it has nothing to do with me. Nothing, do you understand? I’m not jealous; I’m upset because he _hurt_ you. Can you understand that you are—you are _precious_ to me, and the thought of anyone hurting you—the thought of you _letting_ him hurt you—”

“Precious?” David said.

“Christ, David.” Patrick actually slammed a hand on the curve of the steering wheel. “You know what you are!”

 _A slut_ , David wanted to suggest. He didn’t.

“You know what you are to me,” Patrick said, a little more calmly.

David sort of thought he did know, and it was terrifying.

The silence stretched out.

“I’m sorry,” Patrick said suddenly, his voice croaking. “I’m sorry I sound possessive. It’s not that. I—don’t want to possess you. Or your past. I don’t care about your past.”

Patrick probably believed that, and David considered telling him about the time he’d slept with Nina, who had been married with three kids, and when Nina’s husband found out David had started sleeping with her husband too. That way, Patrick could finally get a good understanding of the kind of person David really was, and they could end this whole song and dance right now, except David didn’t want to. He didn’t want to; he wanted this with Patrick so much that it could even overcome David’s instinct to destroy something that felt like so much more than he deserved.

“I care about you,” Patrick was saying. “I don’t want you to be hurt. I don’t want you to ever be hurt, and I know that people have hurt you, but the idea that you would bring it upon yourself like that—it worries me.”

“It shouldn’t.”

“You’re right! It shouldn’t! I have no idea if you’d make those choices again, and I have no right to interrogate your past, but I—I’m sorry; I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I am sincerely talking about my feelings on a second date, but I guess I’m not able to—I guess you might have to get used to it. Apparently.”

“Well, our next date would be a third date, so I wouldn’t have to get _that_ used to it.”

“Is there going to be a third date?”

God, Patrick looked like he was going to cry. He wasn’t, but his face was red, and he was shaking.

“David,” Patrick said, reaching out for his hand.

“Let me tell you something.” David pulled his hand away, because he knew that he would give up and try to make out if Patrick held his hand, and that would be the easy way out. It would be the easy way out, and David should probably have taken it. “I slept with Sebastien because he took pictures of my mother.”

Patrick’s face contorted into incomprehension. “What?”

“He did it to make fun of her. No, it’s more complicated than that.” David closed his eyes, because the truth of why David had slept with Sebastien wasn’t any better than what Patrick currently thought. It wasn’t any better, and yet for some reason David couldn’t bear the idea of someone thinking Sebastien had used him again. He couldn’t bear the idea of _Patrick_ thinking Sebastien had used him again, even though the truth made David look worse. The truth made David look like a manipulative whore, and he didn’t care, because at least he wasn’t pathetic. “He took pictures of my mother—her gorgeous fading body in her gorgeous high fashion clothes that are the opposite of everything in this gorgeous godforsaken place. Do you understand how that would look? Pictures of my mother in Schitt’s Creek?” 

“Sort of,” said Patrick.

“Well, whatever. You know, my mom might even have gone with it, ironic juxtaposition and all, because my mom _loves_ her face in _any_ magazine, except that Sebastien promised to take her photo in studios or Budapest or I don’t know where, but somewhere not here. He acted like she would get paid for them, because that’s how it works; models get _compensated_ for their time, but not with Sebastien, no. He takes photos of you naked in bed without _telling_ you—”

Patrick inhaled swiftly, and David realized that even while shooting himself in the foot, _that_ was a story of past shame and misdeeds he did not need to share. “So I _seduced_ him,” David went on loudly, “and got his memory card with the photos on it, then destroyed it.”

“You slept with him to get a memory card.”

“You weren’t _listening_ ,” said David. “I slept with him so he would _know_ I did it for the memory card; I slept with him to use him like he used me, so he would know what it feels like; I slept with him because I wanted to get fucked and I realize I _really_ should not have just said that to you, like that, out loud, but—well, I did.”

“So it was for revenge.”

“It was to get something _back_. For me. Myself. I mean. Also for my mother, but because I—I used to—do what you’re saying. I’d put myself into positions where people could hurt me and I’m not just talking emotionally, although it was mostly that, but I mean also literal, physical positions, like with ropes and spreader bars and I realize I should not be saying this to you either; I’m just not really used to—saying true things.”

“I appreciate that you are, though,” Patrick said seriously. “You used to, but you don’t now?”

“I’m trying not to,” said David. “I slept with Sebastien because it—I was in control; I knew what I wanted; he couldn’t touch me—well, he did, a lot, but that’s not what I—”

“I get the picture.”

“So you don’t have to worry about me,” David said. “About me having self-respect. Because I have some. I get that it’s not something _you_ can respect, but it worked for me at the time. It really worked. It felt great.”

David was finally done, and silence reigned in the car. 

“I didn’t mean to sound like I didn’t respect you,” Patrick said, after a long moment in which David’s whole being wanted to crawl into itself and die.

“You didn’t.”

No one had ever said anything like that, like what Patrick had said. Okay, a psychiatrist had, once, but they had said it much more like, _you need to treat yourself like you have worth, David, because you have worth_ , but that was abstract worth; Patrick had said something different. He’d said, _you have worth to me_ , and that was rare. Hearing that was rare. David wondered if he could get Patrick to say he was precious again without sounding like a complete asshole. Probably not. That same psychiatrist had said had had narcissism; how could you have narcissism and think yourself worthless; why did they always contradict themselves? Thanks for the complex, Doctor Beckerman. 

David realized neither of them were saying anything, and he thought back over the conversation, which supplied excellent reasons for why Patrick was so quiet.

 _I really fucked it up this time_ , Mumford & Sons would have said. 

“So as you can see,” David said brightly, “I’m really great at taking it slow.”

Patrick smiled. “You must have noticed I am too.”

“I told you I like _spreader_ bars.”

“I’m not even sure I’m one hundred percent certain what a spreader bar is.”

“Oh God. Well, okay, forget I ever said anything _remotely_ —”

“Can I kiss you?”

David looked at him incredulously. “What?”

“You wanted to make out in the car,” Patrick said, “somewhere your family couldn’t see.”

“Are you sure you want—”

“Yes.” Patrick’s interruption was extremely firm. “I want to kiss you more today than I did yesterday, and I—did not think that would be physically possible.”

“Well,” David said, feeling incredibly uneasy about it. “Okay.”

Patrick unbuckled his seatbelt, then leaned over and kissed him. His lips warm and soft on David’s, it was a gentle kiss, until suddenly it wasn’t. Patrick was pushing him back, lifting himself up, maneuvering to get his knee on the cupholder in front of the gear shift so he could push David back against the door. “Hold on,” said David, unbuckling his seatbelt, feeling intensely uncomfortable because this was the absolute _worst_ place to kiss like this; what had he been thinking? Also he didn’t want Patrick to stop if David took too long to position himself to be kissed. Also, shouldn’t Patrick be—at least a _little_ disgusted with him because of those things David had said? But Patrick didn’t seem that way; he was crawling on top of it to kiss him. Maybe Patrick had lied about feeling possessive.

“I’m glad you fucked him,” Patrick said, almost as if he could hear David’s thoughts. Patrick’s face was splotched with color, which just looked like shadow in the dark car, Patrick’s skin pale in the glow of the headlights. “I’m glad,” he said again, “if you got some of your own back.”

“I’m—I did,” said David.

“Good. I’m glad it was good for you.” Patrick kissed him again, this time biting David’s lower lip as he pulled away, and David shifted uncomfortably, because his pants tonight weren’t exactly looser than last night, then Patrick was leaning into his ear. “I want it to be good for you,” Patrick whispered, then kissed the spot under David’s ear.

David, who could not refrain from making a helpless little noise, was pretty sure that Patrick wasn’t talking about Sebastian any more.

Patrick was sucking that spot, and David could hear himself whining; he was about to be humping air over here. He wanted Patrick against him, but the position in the car was awkward, and David still wasn’t sure whether touching Patrick’s ass was going slow, but he wanted it. Was it allowed? Patrick’s ass, David wanted it; was that allowed? David brushed his hand over it, just to see.

“You have no idea what this does to me,” Patrick said, ripping himself away from David’s neck. 

“I have a _fair_ idea.” David’s hand had just brushed the seat of Patrick’s jeans, but now he could see Patrick’s face—see whether it was allowed, and his hand settled on Patrick’s ass.

Patrick kissed him again, so David guessed it was definitely allowed, and it wasn’t like Patrick had—all the booty in the world—but it was nice and firm and now that David’s hand was on it over Patrick’s jeans, he couldn’t help—squeezing, God. It was nice. Patrick had a nice ass. 

Patrick pulled back, his breath catching, mouth open. His eyes were dark, his mouth wet, and David wondered what he should do for him, whether there was anything he should do. “I want . . .” Patrick surged toward him again, kissing him, but his hand dropped lower.

For a moment, David thought Patrick was going to go for it, but Patrick was rucking up David’s sweatshirt and the t-shirt under it, fumbling with them until he got his hand under them, and then he was—just resting his hand there, against David’s abdomen. It was—uncomfortable; animals didn’t expose their bellies for a reason, and David’s was much softer than he liked, but Patrick had pulled back from him, breathing as hard as if he’d just touched David’s cock. His eyes were huge and kind of terrified, but David was kind of getting the impression that Patrick wasn’t terrified of him, or of what they were doing. He was getting the impression that Patrick wanted this very badly—though what exactly ‘this’ was, David wasn’t sure; like, was he turned on by David’s _stomach_? That would be a first. Patrick’s fingers were moving under David’s sweatshirt, as though desperate to feel every inch of David’s happy trail.

“Can I?” Patrick breathed.

“You can do anything you want to me,” David said, and Patrick breathed noisily again, pulling his hand away from David’s hot skin and getting his other hand down there to tug on David’s sweat shirt—oh. Okay. Patrick wanted it off. He _really_ wanted it off, because he was tugging not very nicely on David’s Vetements sweatshirt and the t-shirt underneath, and even if the sweatshirt was only a cotton/elastane blend that was not very easily ruined, it had cost five hundred dollars. “As long as you don’t rip it,” David said, moving to help Patrick lift up the hems. “Or take pictures. Or comment—on—anything.” David pulled them both off, Patrick helping—a feat not easily achieved in the passenger seat of a sedan with Patrick on top of him. 

Then David was shirtless in the passenger seat of Patrick’s car on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere in the dead of night. “I’m going to comment,” said Patrick.

“I told you not to,” David said, though if someone had ever looked at him with that much lust just because he was shirtless, maybe he wouldn’t have been so self-conscious about the layer of chub, or the hair that he could no longer afford to regularly wax. Not that he would have let anyone in Schitt’s Creek wax him, had there even been somewhere in Schitt’s Creek he _could_ get waxed. If he’d done it at Oaklyn’s Beauty Salon and Tanning, likely the whole _town_ would know that a _man_ had gotten a wax within an _hour_ , because wasn’t that _scandalous_ , that a man would care if he was smooth and touchable.

“You look so good,” Patrick said breathlessly, and put his hand at the center of David’s chest, right in the midst of all that wiry thick black hair; David could not help that his father was hirsute, and then Patrick was kissing David’s smile, hand still in David’s chest hair. “So fucking good,” Patrick repeated, and Patrick didn’t really swear that much so he must mean it, but it did mean David couldn’t really kiss back because he was too overwhelmed; _you look good you look good you look good; you look so fucking good._

Then Patrick pulled away and pressed down and sort of—landed on top of David. “Sorry,” said Patrick. “My knee is in the cup holder; I’m just trying to . . .” 

He tried again to find a comfortable way of leaning over David, and David got over the thrills coursing through him for long enough to push Patrick away to reach into the back seat. “Here, go over there,” David told him, pushing Patrick back into the driver’s seat. David pulled his sweatshirt from the back and bunched it over the cupholder so it could be a pillow for Patrick’s knee, then turned himself and lifted one of his legs up, uncomfortably kicking Patrick in the process because there was no other way to get his leg over there. “Come here,” David said, indicating the space he’d made between his legs.

Patrick’s eyes were huge in the dark. It was like he’d never seen a shirtless man before. Or possibly never seen a shirtless man directing him to get between his legs.

Okay so directing Patrick to get between his legs was sort of intimate, David supposed, but he hadn’t thought of that; this was literally the only way to get comfortable in the front seat of a car, and it wasn’t even that comfortable. “Is that not slow?” David asked.

“I want you,” Patrick blurted.

David couldn’t help the things his face did; he couldn’t help his smile. “Then get over here,” he murmured, because Patrick made him feel attractive, and then Patrick got over there, putting his knee on the sweatshirt and his hand back on David’s chest, his lips back on David’s lips. 

“This may seem obvious,” Patrick said, gasping a bit as he pulled away, “but I’m gay. I’m really, really gay.”

 _Not bi?_ David wanted to ask, mostly because he was curious, but David didn’t want to sound like he was questioning him. Only Patrick could know how he felt inside, and Patrick had already said he wanted to tell that story another time.

“I’ve never wanted . . .” Patrick’s hand stroked David’s chest. “I’ve never wanted—anyone—as much as I want you. Sorry, that’s not—that’s probably not slow.”

“You’re driving,” David whispered. “You can go—any speed.”

“David.” Patrick kissed him again, but this time his lips trailed down David’s throat, down farther—Patrick was kissing his chest. Not, like, little kisses here and there on the path down to his cock as one did for a very thorough blowjob; Patrick was just—using his hands and mouth to touch David’s pecs.

What are you _doing?_ David wanted to cry out, because Patrick was—experimenting, kissing and licking him, biting him occasionally, different parts of David’s chest. Patrick’s mouth couldn’t reach David’s stomach, but one of Patrick’s hands was stroking him there, and occasionally Patrick would come back to kiss David’s throat. Patrick bit his Adam’s apple, once and it was—it was embarrassingly intimate; no one had ever looked at and touched David’s body like this—not the parts of him that weren’t ass and mouth and cock. Patrick was exploring David’s chest like . . . like a teenage boy with his first pair of breasts, and now that David thought about it, that was exactly what it was like. 

David didn’t know how it would feel, to live your life thinking you were supposed to be awed by the sight and touch of breasts but never feeling that way, then finally feeling it when confronted with the opportunity to explore a man’s chest.

 _I’ve never wanted anyone as much as I want you,_ Patrick had said, and no one had ever said that to David in such an earnest way, with such aching want behind it, and David tried to concentrate on that instead of feeling embarrassed that someone would want to take this much time with his body. Patrick liked it; Patrick needed this; it was his first—first . . . man’s chest, and for some reason Patrick liked it; he was still kissing it. David put his hand at the back of Patrick’s neck, stroking those short hairs, trying to be encouraging, and eventually he didn’t have to try, because David’s cock began to fill up without David quite knowing why.

David realized he was kind of making sounds, but he hadn’t meant to. He hadn’t known this was turning him on until it was, until Patrick being so innocent and eager began to fill David’s mind like a haze, and Patrick at last began to spend time with David’s nipples, where he wasn’t innocent at all.

“Okay,” David finally gasped, when Patrick drew one into his mouth—“that’s not slow!” He desperately wanted a hand on his cock, any hand; his own hand would do. He _needed_ to jerk off, but Patrick just pulled back from him with his too-serious expression, then put his hands to the hem of his own sweater; he was going to take it off.

“Oh, fuck, yes,” David said, sitting up and pulling the sweater and tank top underneath to help him, help him get it over his head, then off, away, into the backseat. “That’s right, gorgeous,” David said again. “Come here.”

“David.” Patrick sounded needier than anyone had ever sounded, and David got his hand on that broad, bare back and another one on Patrick’s jean-clad ass and pulled Patrick down on top of him, kissing him.

David had thrust up a few times before he remembered to go slow, but luckily the angles were all wrong in this car for Patrick to feel how hard David was. Instead David felt the lean muscle under the skin of Patrick’s back move and shift under his fingers, and David wanted to get closer. David pushed Patrick down hard against him, closer, and Patrick made a sound, so David kept doing it; he wanted to crawl inside of Patrick’s _skin_ to be against those muscles. 

“So hot,” Patrick said, tearing his mouth away. “You’re so hot, I can’t—I can’t breathe.”

“What do you want?” David whispered, reaching for him. “How can I—”

“No.” Patrick pulled away. “I can’t; I’m gonna . . .” Patrick pulled farther back, lifting his knee off the cupholder, eventually managing to mostly get back in the driver’s seat. “I just need . . .” He put his head back, closed his eyes, swallowed.

“Too fast?” David asked, pulling his leg away, trying to angle it back into the well of the passenger seat.

“No,” Patrick said again, hand shooting out to grab David’s knee, sliding up to grip David’s thigh. “Not too fast. I’m just—I was gonna come. In my pants.” 

David’s jaw dropped.

Patrick closed his eyes, swallowed again. He sounded humiliated. “I really don’t want to come in my pants.”

David tried to stop the smile spreading over his face; he didn’t want to look like he was laughing at Patrick, because he wasn’t laughing at Patrick, but David was—feeling very accomplished; he hadn’t known Patrick was getting there at all. It had been hot; David had been—kind of humping the air, but he wasn’t anywhere close, and the though that Patrick was, so quickly, that he wanted that, so soon—David just felt very proud of himself, that was all, maybe proud of Patrick too. Patrick _liked_ it; he liked him, though David knew better than to say anything about it. “Um,” he said instead. “If you don’t want to—in your pants; I could help you _not_ in your pants.”

“No,” Patrick said, for a third time. David was keeping track. “I don’t want to.”

“Okay.”

“We’re in a car on a dirt road,” said Patrick, “and I wanted to . . . take my time. With this.”

“All right.” David took the chance to look at Patrick, shirtless in the front seat of his car, his hand still on David’s thigh. Patrick’s breathing was slowing down, but color was splotched all over his pale skin, right down Patrick’s flat chest and Patrick’s flat abs. God, Patrick probably worked out or something; exercise was gross but looked _great_ on Patrick; he had fabulous arms, God. The hair on Patrick’s chest was as light and sparse as the hair on his face, his nipples perfectly shaped and probably pink, though David couldn’t make out the color well in the dim light. Patrick was all soft skin and pastels over fairly firm muscles and rather broad shoulders, considering he wasn’t that large of a man, and David wondered that he got to have someone so hot. It would have been enough for Patrick to be smart and kind and responsible and funny, but he was just so pretty, too.

“I think I’ll put this back on,” David said, leaning in toward his sweatshirt. He didn’t bother with the t-shirt underneath, struggling to get the sweatshirt right-side-out in the dark, struggling again to get it on in the confines of the passenger seat of the car. When he was done, Patrick was just looking at him. “What?” said David, because he knew he must have looked ridiculous trying to wiggle into the sweatshirt.

Patrick shook his head and leaned in to kiss him again, and that was nice, an armful of shirtless Patrick. God, there was just the perfect amount of him, long stretches of muscle under taut skin—so smooth and pastel, David wanted to ruin it. God, he wanted to ruin him. 

“Fuck,” Patrick whispered, kissing up to David’s ear. “This is going to kill me.”

“What?” David whispered.

“This.” Pulling away, Patrick looked around in the back for his sweater. 

David watched him get it on, sad to see all that lovely skin and muscle disappear under something cheap with a nylon blend. “I’m not sure a random road was such a good idea,” David said, when the skin was almost all gone. “I really wouldn’t have liked it if the police had found us.”

“We weren’t doing anything wrong.”

“It’s probably a private road.”

“Yeah.” Patrick looked around. “You know, I really wasn’t planning on making out with you in the car.”

“Where were you going to make out with me, then?”

Patrick just looked at him and smiled, then started up the car.

*

Patrick drove David up to the motel, which David protested.

“What?” Patrick asked innocently, as they pulled into the drive. “We already made out.”

“Is there like—a limit? Once per day?” said David. “Is this because we’re going slow?”

“Well, not once every day,” Patrick said, pulling up to a space and parking the car. “I’m not coming into work tomorrow.”

“Your day off,” David said, trying not to sound disappointed that he would apparently not be making out with Patrick in the stockroom.

“And I plan on staying in tomorrow night,” Patrick went on.

“In. With Ray.” Patrick nodded, and David tried to put this all together. “You’re saying—you don’t want to see me?”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“Okay, because it sounds like that’s exactly what you’re—”

“Fine,” Patrick said, but he was smiling. “I don’t want to see you, but not because I don’t want to see you; it’s because I wanted to take this slow. Usually when you start dating someone you don’t see them every day—” 

David opened his mouth to protest, but Patrick just lifted his chin and said, “No, I know, when it’s you, you just fuck for three weeks straight until they get bored, but we’re not doing that, remember?”

David frowned at him.

Patrick just looked at him innocently and shrugged. “You’re the one that said it.”

“Okay, I told you that in _confidence_ —”

“Guess what; we’re still in confidence; you’re in my car.”

“So you don’t want to make out—even a little—tomorrow?”

“Nope.”

“So this is an—admonition to step up my game.”

“David. If you stepped up your game, I’d probably have a coronary. Your game is fine; we are fine; you said you would go at my pace; this is my pace.”

“Okay.”

“Just think,” Patrick said, leaning in to kiss him again. Then his lips were at David’s ear. “I’ll be feeling those scratches down my back all day tomorrow.”

“What scratches?” 

Patrick pulled back to look at him incredulously.

“I don’t remember scratching—” _you_ , David wanted to say, but he remembered wanting to wreck him; he remembered wanting to get so close to Patrick that David was under his skin, and David had very short blunt nails, but he knew he was a scratcher. And a biter. And a screamer. Plenty of people had informed him, but he hadn’t meant to be that way with Patrick.

“I liked it,” Patrick said quickly, as though guessing the direction of David’s thoughts. He kissed David again. “Remember,” he said, a little hesitantly, “I said I was going to—so I stopped? You were tearing my skin off. It felt so good. Everything you do to me feels good.”

“Okay,” said David, “but I didn’t actually mean to—”

“I liked it,” Patrick said again. “I’m going to like it tomorrow, remembering you were there.”

“Well,” David said, squirming uncomfortably because that was really, really hot, but also Patrick was still saying he didn’t want to see him tomorrow. “Maybe you could—bite me, or something, so that I remember _you_ were there.”

“Otherwise you’ll forget?” Patrick arched a brow, and David scowled at him again.

“Who knows? Maybe.”

“Do you like biting, David?”

Fuck. David squirmed again. “I’m not—it’s not—the worst thing. In the world. I mean, if you wanted to . . .”

“Oh, I want to.” Patrick kissed him again. “Good night, David.”

“What?”

“Good night, Patrick,” Patrick mimicked. “I had such a lovely evening.”

“I thought you were going to—” But David didn’t finish that sentence, because _bite me_ sounded so pathetic and nineties.

“Maybe some other time.”

David didn’t want to pout, but he didn’t want to stop himself from pouting, so pouting might have happened, and Patrick just laughed at him some more.

“All day,” Patrick reminded him, still smiling. “I’ll be feeling those scratches all day.”

“Do you need some kind of salve?” David asked. “Because we have that at the store, and if you come in tomorrow I could—”

“Get out of my car, David.”

“That’s unceremonious.”

“Oh, do you need a ceremony?” Patrick laughed. “You know, you didn’t want anyone to see us making out in the motel parking lot, but the amount of time we’ve spent here—”

“Okay, I’m going,” David said hurriedly.

Patrick just laughed some more.

*

When David got back to the motel room Alexis was on her bed, reading. Elmdale College had these pretests you could take to score out of certain intro classes, and some idiot had told her intro classes were for losers, so Alexis was trying to study for them. Alexis was really serious about whole college thing, so David didn’t have the heart to tell her she’d probably fail the pretests and intro classes would be really good for her. Actually, he’d already told her that three times; he just didn’t have the heart to say it again. Well he had the heart to, just not the energy; also, he was distracted.

Alexis looked up from her reading, her whole face changing.

“No.” Not looking at her, David dropped his bag on his bed, then headed straight for the bathroom.

“David!” Alexis had jumped off her bed and was going after him.

“No, I’m not doing this.” David tried to pull the bathroom door closed, but he couldn’t because Alexis was in it.

“I just want to know how it went,” Alexis protested.

“Great, now get out of the bathroom.”

“Where did you even do it?”

“Do _what?_ ”

“It was the second date,” said Alexis, as though this explained everything.

“And unlike you, not all of us go to the Maldives for four months on our second date.”

“David, I know you weren’t in the _Maldives_ ; I just want to know where you went.”

“A Greek restaurant!”

“In a public restroom?” Alexis said, horrified.

“To eat!” exclaimed David. “We ate!”

“Ugh, that’s not what I was . . .” Not bothering to finish her sentence, Alexis flipped her hair. “I was thinking about this. You live here; _he_ lives with Ray, so where are you, you know, hooking—”

“Does _everyone_ know Patrick lives with Ray?”

“I thought you _met_ at Ray’s.”

“He was working for—okay, you know what, I do not need to have conversations about where I will hook up with the guy I’m dating! We didn’t even get that far so—”

Alexis’s mouth dropped open in shock.

“Ugh,” David said, feeling he had given up too soon on trying to push her out of the bathroom.

“You didn’t even get that far? Where did you _get_ to?”

“First of all, that’s not your business. Second of all, _you’re_ the one who said he had a button-face; we’re going slow.”

“Slow— _unf_!” Alexis squeaked. “That’s so cute.”

“I need to shower.”

“Ew, David!” Alexis said, again horrified.

“Not to—oh my God.” David was at last successful in pushing her out.

“I’m texting him,” she said.

He opened the door again. “You are not texting him. How did you even get his number?”

“I asked him for it.”

“Why—?” But Alexis already had her phone out, thumbs moving on it rapidly, and David stomped out of the bathroom to go get it from her.

“It’s my phone,” Alexis said, after David had made a few wild grabs for it and Alexis had twisted away from him athletically, finally landing on her bed. “I can text who I want with it.” 

David opened his mouth to say, _then why don’t you text Ted_ , possibly with something truly brutal after it about how Ted didn’t want to text her. But while Alexis was a pain in the ass, David wasn’t a monster, so he slammed his mouth shut, along with the bathroom door, once he was on the other side of it.

“David,” Alexis said, knocking rapidly a few minutes later, after he’d gotten the water hot and his clothes off. She sounded delighted. “He says, ‘Gee’—he actually wrote it out, G-E-E?—‘He said he didn’t want to _neck with me_ —’” David was pretty sure the emphasis was hers—“‘in front of the motel because his whole family would see; I guess I really messed up. Say sorry for me.’ David! You _necked_ with him in front of the motel?”

David wrapped a towel around his lower half and swung the door open. “He is _joking_ , Alexis; we did _not_ make out in front of the motel.”

“Then why would he say you did?”

“Because he thinks he’s _funny_ ; give me that—” David made another wild grab for her phone, which was difficult considering he was holding the towel.

“Ew, don’t do that while naked, David,” Alexis said, then shut the bathroom door in his face.

David didn’t know who he wanted to kill harder, Alexis or fucking _Patrick_ , who was flirting with him through his _sister_ , God, except Patrick was joking around with Alexis too—which should be nice, because she’d been moping around for _literally_ all weekend since she’d quit at the vet’s office, except David didn’t need them ganging up on him.

Fuck.

David was smiling. He was standing there in a towel staring at the bathroom door and smiling. His mouth hurt from smiling; he bit his cheek to stop it, but he was still smiling. Fuck. He was used to his cock filling up but not his whole heart; getting himself off was not going to be enough. Especially getting himself off with Alexis in the next room knowing he was doing it; it was too complicated, and David wanted too _much_ ; he didn’t know what he wanted, because he felt like this much had never been offered to him before.

Tentatively, David brought his hand up to his chest, touching where Patrick had touched. No one had ever touched him like that before, like David was beautiful and wonderful and new, or if anyone had ever touched him like that, it had ended in heartache, and he couldn’t remember. This was going to be a bad orgasm. It was going to be a bad orgasm because it wasn’t with _him_ , and that was a pathetic thought; it was so pathetic, and David clung to it; he liked it. He liked the thought of his body only functioning properly when Patrick was touching it. 

This wasn’t slow at all.

David dropped the towel, then got in the shower.


	3. Monday

Patrick wasn’t going to be at the shop the next morning, which meant that David had to get up early, which meant that he hated everything more than usual. He barely got the store open at nine, Patrick’s voice saying at the back of his brain, “It’s important to be open even if no one’s there, because people can still see that it’s open.”

“Why does it matter if they _see_ that it’s open if they don’t come in?” David had demanded.

“It establishes a brand,” Patrick had said.

So David dusted between the rows of products in his empty store and thought about the text Patrick had sent at eight fifty-five, which was, “Have a good day.” This text was _very_ bland, and David didn’t like it, but he had a sneaking suspicion Patrick didn’t think it was bland. David had a sneaking suspicion that Patrick meant it, that Patrick meant the nice things he said so deeply that all the other nice things that could be read into it were things he meant too: _I’m thinking of you, I miss you, I want you to be happy._

David didn’t want to be bland, but he was also allergic to being earnest, so he dusted and dealt with customers and rearranged the stockroom again.

“So I can definitely feel those scratches on my back,” Patrick texted at one pm.

David couldn’t resist smiling, even though he twisted his whole face to stop it. “Pics or it didn’t happen,” he texted back, which might be in poor taste after he’d revealed what Sebastien had done to him, but it wasn’t like those had been _phone_ pictures willingly taken, either.

**Patrick:** You know it happened you did it to me

**David:** Pics

**Patrick:** I’m not sexting you pics

**David:** This has nothing to do with sexting its your back

**Patrick:** After what you did to my back it would be sexting

**David:** I’d send you a pic of a bite mark  
 **David:** If I could get someone to bite me

**Patrick:** Maybe someone will  
 **Patrick:** Someday

**David:** You could tonight

**Patrick:** I’m watching that baseball doc  
 **Patrick:** And having dinner with ray. Which I know you’d enjoy

**David:** Maybe I would

**Patrick:** You’d have dinner with ray just to be close to me? How sweet

**David:** Maybe I just want to see ray

**Patrick:** Oh he won’t bite you david

**David:** Have you asked

**Patrick:** I miss you  
 **Patrick:** Why are you texting me  
 **Patrick:** Get back to work

These last three texts were all in quick succession, as though Patrick hadn’t meant to text, I miss you. David could not stop smiling, probably giving away too many free samples to the customers. 

**David:** Roland keeps coming back and asking for that weed tea

Patrick didn’t reply.

**David:** What exactly did Alexis text you last night  
 **David:** Beware she lies

Patrick didn’t reply to that either.

**David:** So these kids came in and complimented me on my hair I guess I look really good today   
**David:** Too bad you’re missing out

Patrick didn’t reply to that either.

_I miss you too_ , David thought about texting, but he couldn’t. He just couldn’t. He had seen Patrick _yesterday_ , and he didn’t say things like that, things that made him sound like a bad teen romance; he didn’t.

**David:** Are you coming to work tomorrow

Patrick didn’t reply to that either, and it was so goddamn asinine to get hung up on a series of texts; David _knew_ that it was. _Patrick_ had been the one to say _I miss you_ , and _David_ had been the one to not say it back. Losing his mind over this was something that Alexis would do, and then at five-oh-one, David’s phone lit up.

**Patrick:** Tell Roland to find his own weed tea  
 **Patrick:** Alexis asked if we had a fun date. Then she told me I was good for you.   
**Patrick:** Did she lie?  
 **Patrick:** Your hair looks good? How new and different for you  
 **Patrick:** Maybe you should send me a hair pic  
 **Patrick:** Of course I’m coming to work tomorrow  
 **Patrick:** It’s literally my job  
 **Patrick:** And maybe you could apply that salve after all these scratches sting

**David:** hi

**Patrick:** Hi yourself did you close the store

**David:** No someone sent me all these texts

**Patrick:** Close the store

**David:** You order me around a lot

**Patrick:** I was j/k  
 **Patrick:** Tone doesn’t work so well over text

**David:** I like it  
 **David:** Being ordered around

**Patrick:** Interesting since you hardly do anything I tell you

**David:** I meant in bed

There was a long pause.

**David:** Sorry that wasn’t slow

**Patrick:** I knew what you meant  
 **Patrick:** Close the store david

**David:** I flipped the sign

**Patrick:** For real david

**David:** ok

**Patrick:** Were you going to send me a hair pic or not

**David:** I don’t do selfies

**Patrick:** Is the store closed?

**David:** If you’d come in today you would know

**Patrick:** Still miss you

*

Stevie didn’t like it when he bugged her at reception, but David had nothing else to do that night. He thought he would go crazy if he spent it by himself. “You never replied to my text,” David told Stevie, sailing into the motel office after dinner.

“What text?” said Stevie, barely looking up from her book.

“Um, the one I sent after you _ditched_ me on my birthday?”

“Hm.” Sliding her feet off the reception counter, Stevie took out her phone. “Oh, this text? ‘It WAS a date,’ ‘was’ in all caps. Like tell me something I didn’t already know.” She tossed her phone aside.

“But you never followed up.”

Stevie gave him her _why are you crazy_ frown, the smile lurking under it as she closed her book and put her elbow on its cover, leaning over the reception desk to look at him. “You want me to ask how your date went?” she asked sarcastically.

“That’s what friends do,” David told her. “And people who care about me. And sisters.” 

Stevie’s brows just went up higher. “I thought if you had anything to tell me, I would have heard from you it myself.”

“Maybe if my _friend_ had followed up with me, she wouldn’t have had to hear it from the town _crier_.”

“Your dad is the town crier?”

David’s mouth dropped open. “My _dad_? I thought we were talking about Alexis?”

“Your dad heard it from your mom who heard it from Alexis. Something about you dating a button-face? Is it like a little doll, with button eyes?”

“Okay, that movie? Scarred me,” David said, waving his hands as though to banish it from memory.

“Which movie?”

“All of them.” David waved his hands some more.

“So you’re afraid of dating Patrick now?”

“No.” David put his elbows on the reception desk, kind of close to Stevie now, but he didn’t care. She always smelled great, like a fresh linen closet, except when she smelled like trash or toilet cleaner. That was probably because Stevie’s exact job was linen, trash, and toilets, but when she smelled like linens it was great. Sometimes she used a lavender shampoo that was also very nice, but she probably would’ve killed him had he mentioned it. “He took me to Lucy’s Place in Elmdale.”

“I’m impressed,” said Stevie, who actually looked impressed. “That’s a good restaurant.”

David put his chin in his hand, using said hand to cover his smile so Stevie wouldn’t know how ridiculously goddamn happy it made him. “I know.”

“So?”

David pressed his hand harder over his mouth. “We’re taking it slow.”

“You’re rocking back and forth and muffling your words. I can’t tell; is this a good or bad sign? Is this secret code because he’s having you followed? Is button-face a stalker?”

David took his hand away and said loudly, “We’re taking it slow.”

Stevie reared back. “Why? He _really_ likes you.”

“Well, that’s private.”

“Okay,” Stevie said slowly.

“He’s never been with a guy before.”

“Oh.” Stevie looked startled, then realization darkened Stevie’s features. “ _Oh._ ”

“I don’t know what to do.” David’s hand was back over his mouth. “He didn’t want to go out tonight.”

“I’m taking it he didn’t want to stay in with you either? Because you’re here. Still rocking.”

David stopped swaying but didn’t take his hand away from his mouth. He didn’t want to let the bitterness leak through. “Guess he needed a night off.”

“You went out for your birthday,” Stevie pointed out, and David nodded. “And you went out last night.” David nodded again. “And the night before that . . . ?”

David moved his fingers away from his mouth enough to tell her, “We made out in the stockroom.”

“A detail which I did not need to know. That’s a lot for going slow, David.”

“Is it?”

“Yeah,” Stevie said, exactly as though he needed to catch a clue. “That’s a lot for when you first start dating, and that’s a lot of . . .”

“What,” David demanded, finally lowering his hand.

“You,” Stevie said, gesturing at him. “That’s a lot of you; you’re a lot.”

That hurt to hear, and David wanted to fling an insult back, or tease her maybe, because Stevie didn’t actually mean it in a bad way; he wanted to move over it and deny it, but David thought of Patrick, and couldn’t. He couldn’t. “But is it too much,” he said thickly. He was swaying again; he could feel it, but he couldn’t stop it. “Am I too much; is this—too much.” He could barely bare to ask, much less to make it sound like a question; he didn’t want to look at her.

“Are we really having a heart to heart about the guy you’re dating?”

“I don’t want to,” David said, finally moving away from the desk because he needed to express himself with arms. “I don’t _want_ to have a heart to heart; I don’t want anyone’s heart! I want to go out to nice restaurants and get told I look good and have—fun; that’s all I’ve ever wanted!”

Stevie pressed her lips together, looking serious, which was never a good sign. “And how did that work out for you, all those other times?” she asked quietly.

David threw his arms up in answer, because she knew, and nothing could really describe how hugely nothing had ever worked for him, in the past; nothing had ever worked for him.

“Maybe you could try for something different this time,” Stevie suggested.

“I don’t know how to try for something different! I don’t know how to stop being . . . this.” David gestured at himself.

“I didn’t say stop being—that,” she said, in the voice she used when she thought he was being a kindergartener. “I said, try for something different. Try to have something different. With him.”

“Like what?” David whispered, because literally nothing he could try seemed suitable for Patrick. Nothing seemed _good_ enough, for Patrick.

“Don’t look at me,” Stevie said, holding up her hands. “I’m not a relationship guru; I’m just trying to be a friend.”

“Okay, thanks,” David said, trying not to sound grudging, because she actually was being very nice.

“And if you were being a friend to _me_ you would watch the horror-thon on late night cable with me after—” She checked the computer—“Darius Achar checks in.”

David stared at her. “You know I hate horror.”

“And this is why you are not a real friend.”

David stared at her some more. God, he hated her. “Do we have to do it in the love room?”

“That is where the TV we can both watch is.”

“That makes it even more terrifying,” David muttered. “It’s like I’m literally watching the playhouse version of me on the ceiling be terrified of me being terrified which only terrifies me more.”

“You can get under the covers,” Stevie said magnanimously. “I brought popcorn.”

“You planned this,” David accused.

“I planned to do it alone. I guess I’m still doing it alone, since I don’t have any friends.”

“Ugh,” David said. “Call me when . . .”

“Darius Achar.”

“Whoever gets here.”

“Why, David?” Stevie asked innocently. “Will you watch the horror-thon with me?”

“No,” said David, sweeping out of the motel office. “But maybe _Darius_ will watch it with you.”

*

**Patrick:** Having a good night?

**David:** No  
 **David:** I’m watching horror movies

**Patrick:** Thought you hated horror

**David:** Now you feel bad for leaving me to fend for myself

**Patrick:** Not really

**David:** Given your earlier ?s re stevie I feel the need to tell you that we are in the love room

**Patrick:** What’s that

**David:** Something I never want you to see

**Patrick:** At least you’re having fun

**David:** Also I’m under the covers with her

**Patrick:** What’s stevies number

**David:** I am NOT giving you that

A minute later, Stevie’s phone pinged.

“Aw,” Stevie said. “Button-man says to hold you if you get scared.”

“Oh, my God.” David put his head under the covers, then yanked them back down. “How did he get your number?”

Stevie messed around on her phone, apparently not nearly as interested in _The Grudge_ as she was _texting_ the guy David was _dating_.

“Stevie,” David said.

“Town crier,” Stevie said, tossing aside her phone.

David put the covers back over his head, then took them back off. Maybe _The Grudge_ would give him interesting ideas for how to have Alexis killed.


	4. Tuesday

On Tuesday, David made it to the store by nine-twenty, but Patrick was already helping a customer. A funny thing happened when David walked in, though, because Patrick didn’t even look at him, didn’t stop talking to the customer about the organic applesauce, did not indicate in _any_ way with his body that he was aware that David was there, except—Patrick began to smile. He just started smiling at the customer; the smile kept growing bigger and bigger. 

David slipped his sunglasses into his bag and his bag into the stockroom, and when he came back, Patrick was still smiling. His big brown eyes were bright, and David knew Patrick wasn’t smiling at the customer. Even though Patrick hadn’t even looked at him; it wasn’t at the customer; the customer was boring. That smile was for David, and David bit his cheek and looked at the computer to avoid smiling back.

Then the customer was gone, the bell ringing above the door, and David pretended not to notice, still looking at the sales for the day on the computer screen. There were none; Patrick hadn’t even managed to sell that applesauce. David listened to Patrick come over to the register counter, listened to him wait a moment. “What’s so fascinating about our sales records?” Patrick finally said.

“Oh, they’re riveting.”

“Oh, are they?” Patrick asked. 

David finally looked at him, but Patrick was already leaning in, his lips brushing David’s.

“Good morning,” Patrick said, pulling away.

David bit his lip, turning back to the computer screen. “Why don’t you come over here? You could look at sales records with me.”

“I’ve already looked at them,” Patrick said, smirking. “Some of us have to keep up with accounting.”

“I meant so you could kiss me.”

“Oh, did you? Wow, I’m so clueless.”

“And yet, you’re still not over here.”

“I don’t think that would be professional.”

“Fuck professional,” David muttered at the computer screen.

“Speaking of professional, did you rearrange the stockroom?”

Fire flared up along every inch of David’s exposed skin. The stockroom shelves were built into the wall, metal struts screwed along either corner with one set down the middle. Each shelf was formed by two wood planks, ends resting on the corner struts and meeting in the middle on the middle strut to form one long shelf. The planks weren’t fastened down, meaning that planks on either side could be removed, probably to make shelves of different heights. David had removed all the shelves on one side, shifting all the inventory they had stored there either out on the floor, to the backroom, or to the cooler room, such that there was now about two and a half feet of blank wall between the struts. “I felt like we needed a blank wall?” David said, his voice too husky to sound as innocent as he meant it to.

“What for?” Patrick asked in voice that meant he knew exactly what for.

“Um, well, it makes it easier to maneuver in there, for one thing. There’s more room.”

“I sort of don’t think that’s why you cleared a wall.”

“Well.” David tried not to flail with his hands. “Why do _you_ think I cleared a wall?”

“I’ve been thinking about this,” Patrick said. “It’s supposed to be an employee break space, right? I feel like with the space you made, maybe we could put a chair in there.”

“A chair.” He sort of thought Patrick was teasing, except he looked perfectly serious. 

“Yeah, is that what you had in mind?”

“Not—really.”

“Okay, well, I think it’s a great idea. In fact,” Patrick went on brightly, _like_ he was teasing, except he could be teasing David for being ridiculous while still really meaning it about the chair, “I tried it out.”

“You tried it out.”

“Yeah,” Patrick said again, at last coming around the register counter but not to make out. “I put a chair in there; it fit great.” He brushed right past David, pulling aside the curtain to the stockroom. “Come see what you think.”

Patrick was carrying this joke about not knowing why David had cleared a wall in there way too far. Rolling his eyes, because now he was going to have this whole argument with Patrick while Patrick was _joking around_ about why they needed a wall, David came to look at the chair. Patrick yanked David’s wrist, putting David in front of him, then pushing with both hands and walking into him, slamming David into the wall, kissing him so thoroughly David actually felt dizzy; he was dizzy. There wasn’t a chair here. Patrick bit down on David’s bottom lip, tugged on it hard, then put his tongue back in David’s mouth.

David heard himself make an undignified sound, a needy little whine followed by another needy little whine, and Patrick was getting his hands under David’s sweater and t-shirt as though he couldn’t stand not touching David’s skin. Patrick’s hands raked up his stomach, inside David’s sweater around to David’s back, his palms hot, short nails scraping David’s skin as though to make up for what David had done to him.

David’s hands scrambled on Patrick’s back, because this was allowed. It was allowed; he pulled Patrick’s dress shirt out of his jeans— _Wranglers_ , David’s brain supplied, and he hiked Patrick’s dress shirt up; he had to touch—

Patrick pulled away, gasping. “We can’t,” he said. “We need—the store.”

“I’m just showing you why I redecorated.”

Patrick breathed heavily into David’s neck. “I knew why you redecorated.”

“Do you like it,” David said, at last able to get his hands on the soft, sweet skin of Patrick’s lower back, massaging with fingers to see if he could feel the scratches.

“Yes,” Patrick breathed, “I like it. David.” He kissed him again. “I like it.”

They kissed some more, Patrick hungry and hard while David was deliberately slow. Slow was easy when Patrick kissed like this; David just had to open his mouth and let Patrick take, take and take and take, and Patrick did so like a starving person. David wanted to open everything—his legs, his ass, his ribcage, and let Patrick take, let him have anything there that looked appealing, let him take it and devour it and call it his own; it was easy.

David just wanted one little thing for himself, and that was this precious space under Patrick’s lats, just above his ass, this curve of sweet skin hidden by Patrick’s shirt but revealed by David’s fingers. David couldn’t feel the scratches there; he didn’t remember scratching Patrick, so he didn’t know whether he’d scratched him there, but David wanted to. He didn’t know if that was wrong, that he wanted to maul this perfect space; his nails were very short. He’d have to do it hard.

Patrick pulled back, wet and breathless. “You do know you’re doing that now, right?”

“Yes?” David said hesitantly, but didn’t stop the hard, deep drag of his nails across the small of Patrick’s back.

“Okay,” Patrick breathed, sounding strangled. “Okay.” He reached to pull David’s hand from his back, banging his elbow on one of the struts coming from the wall that supported the shelves next to them, and David winced in sympathy.

He’d wanted to hurt Patrick, but not from getting his elbows banged, so David stopped scratching.

“You can’t do that to me here,” Patrick said, voice guttering.

“Okay,” David said slowly, because he wasn’t quite sure whether Patrick meant it or _meant it_ meant it. 

“I mean it,” Patrick said. “Not when we’re working.”

“It’s not like you’re bleeding.”

“That’s not what I—” Patrick seemed to have to stop to catch his breath, then he took a careful step away. “That’s not why you can’t.”

“Okay,” David said again.

Rubbing a hand over the back of his neck, Patrick let out a big breath. “Jeez,” he said, sighing again.

David didn’t think he’d ever been with anyone who said _jeez_ , but he got what was happening, now. Patrick was turned on; he was too turned on, trying to calm himself down.

Patrick took another breath, rubbed his hand over the back of his neck again, then finally looked around. “I can’t believe you made a make-out space,” he said finally.

“I can’t believe you were going to put a chair in our make-out space,” David said.

“I thought about it.” Patrick turned back to him seriously. “We shouldn’t have a make-out space, David.”

“Why not?”

“It’s not . . . professional.” 

“Blue balls aren’t professional either.”

Patrick looked at the floor.

“I meant,” David began, but didn’t know how to amend what he’d said. “Blue lips? Because you’re not kissing me.”

“I’m not trying to give you blue balls, David.”

“I know.”

“We shouldn’t do this while the store is open.”

“We can hear the bell.”

“My shirt is untucked,” Patrick said, as though to explain, working on tucking it in again.

“Okay,” David said, waving a hand. “The world won’t come undone if your shirt is untucked.”

“But my personal standards will.”

David blinked at him deliberately. “I don’t have personal standards.”

“Yes, you do. You won’t even let us eat on the floor.” Taking a step toward him, Patrick leaned in, kissing his cheek. “I like the make-out space,” he said, drawing away again. “We shouldn’t use it during work hours.”

“How about after work hours?”

“We’ll see.” Patrick kissed him again, but then he moved aside the curtain and went back out on the floor, leaving David alone.

After a minute he heard the bell, and they had customers for the next several hours.

*

Patrick left to go get them lunch around noon. 

“Don’t get a tuna melt,” David told him.

“You just said you wanted a salad.”

“I meant, for you.”

“Why?” said Patrick.

“I don’t want to kiss tuna.”

Patrick began to smile a smile that held a much bigger smile behind it. “Oh, I see what the confusion is here,” he said brightly. “You see, I’d be getting the tuna melt to eat it, because it’s my favorite lunch, not for you to kiss it.”

“I don’t want to taste it in your mouth.”

“Aw,” said Patrick. “I guess you won’t be tasting my mouth.”

David glared, and Patrick grinned.

He came back with a salad and a tuna melt.

*

It was one of those profitable, lonely days where they had so many customers (profitable) that they had to eat separately (lonely) in the stockroom. “Eating in front of people is disgusting,” David had told Patrick, when David had informed him they were only allowed to eat in the stockroom.

“It’s weird how you can go to places that are literally rooms full of people eating in front of each other,” Patrick had mused. “And people pay to go to these rooms! They pay to eat in front of each other.”

“Okay, you’re being sarcastic?” said David. “But in my former life I _only_ dined privately in houses and in yachts and in specially booked rooms.”

Patrick laughed at him. “That sounds lonely.”

“It was,” David told him archly. “It was perfect.”

“The store isn’t a yacht,” Patrick pointed out.

“That’s exactly my point,” said David. “Imagine you were going to book a room in a motel. You walk up to the counter and the girl there is wearing flannel and eating a burger.”

“And?” said Patrick.

“It’s disgusting.”

“The flannel, or the burger?”

“Both.”

Patrick shrugged. “I’d probably assume the girl—who I am also assuming is Stevie—didn’t get a chance to eat. I wouldn’t begrudge her her dinner.”

“I would,” said David. “She’s _working_. She’s supposed to be _serving the customer_.”

“She can’t do that and eat three square meals a day?”

“First of all, burgers are not a square meal; they are a very _round_ meal; they make you very round. Second of all, she can’t do both _at the same time_ ; it’s not professional.”

“Okay,” Patrick had said, so now if it was busy, they ate in shifts.

*

After the after-lunch rush, there was a lull, and David was trying to think of a way to persuade Patrick to make use of the make-out space after all when Patrick said, “I wanted to thank you.”

“You’re welcome. My genius often goes unappreciated.” David was refolding the sweaters, because someone had messed with them, but he glanced back to see Patrick with his hands on the register counter. Patrick had been watching him, David was sure. Patrick looked at him a lot when he thought David wasn’t looking. “Is this about the make-out space?”

“It’s not about the make-out space. Though you’re very creative. I admire how much you did with so little.”

“Okay,” David said, setting down the sweater he’d been folding and turning around to face Patrick fully. “You’re making me suspicious.”

“Why?”

“All these compliments.”

“I thought you liked compliments.”

“I do, though I actually already know I’m a design wunderkind, so it’s really compliments about my appearance that make me . . .” David had already said something really dirty about what those sorts of compliments made him do, so he decided to stop talking.

“You already know you’re a design wunderkind. You mean you don’t already know about your appearance?”

Heat pricked David’s skin, uncomfortable and unpleasant, and he only wanted more of it. “No, I—perhaps you had better—tell me.”

“Hm,” said Patrick.

“Patrick,” David said, trying not to sink through the floor.

“Is that a new sweater?” Patrick asked innocently.

David looked down at his two tone vertical Givenchy signature jumper and said, “What, this?”

“Then again,” Patrick said thoughtfully, “I’ve never seen you wear the same sweater twice. How many sweaters do you own?”

“I don’t—just a few.”

“Hm.” Patrick stood up and turned to the computer, tapping keys and looking at the screen.

David waited. He waited and waited and waited, the floor opening up around him, and Patrick _wasn’t going to_. He was tapping keys and looking at the screen and _smiling_ , smiling more and more as though he knew that every keystroke during which Patrick wasn’t looking at David or complimenting was torture, but Patrick still didn’t do it. Fuck, he was a _monster_. 

“What,” David began, trying not to sound tortured, “what were you thanking me for?”

“Hm?” 

David was going to murder him. “I’m going to murder you,” David said.

“Good thing we don’t carry murder weapons in the store,” Patrick said.

“Like you said, I’m creative; I could figure something out.”

“Got ideas from those horror movies last night?”

“Oh my God, don’t remind me.” David finally turned back to the sweaters.

“Too bad,” said Patrick, “because that was what I wanted to thank you about.”

“What?” David turned back to him, and Patrick had turned away from the computer and was looking at him seriously.

“You telling me where you were with Stevie last night,” said Patrick. “What’s the love room?”

“It’s part of a horror movie.” David turned back to the sweaters, but he could hear Patrick coming out from behind the register desk.

“You don’t actually have to keep me updated about you and Stevie,” Patrick said, still standing behind him. “I mean, I’m not worried about Stevie. At all. And I wanted you to know that if you did want to—I mean, with someone else—I mean. We only just started dating. I understand if you’re seeing other people.”

“I’m not seeing other people,” David said, appalled for a myriad of reasons, one of which was that he’d been spending a _lot_ of time with Patrick because of the store; how did he think David would have time to see anyone else? The second of which was the idea that Patrick thought there could be anyone else in this town David would be _remotely_ interested in dating; the entire town wore Reeboks and smelled like hay; Patrick was a fucking _jewel in the rough_.

“Good,” said Patrick. “I’m not either.”

Oh God, David hadn’t even thought of that. He felt sick; he swallowed. He should have thought of that. He had, maybe, in a distant part of his mind, thought that Patrick would soon get bored and realize that David was not the only queer man this side of Alberta, but there had been like thirty-seven _other_ things to make David anxious about this relationship; he hadn’t even thought about the inevitable cheating.

“So I thought . . .” Patrick was coming closer, closer and closer; David couldn’t look at him; he pressed his hand into the soft sweater on the table. “I thought if you did . . . go on a date, with someone else, maybe you could just let me know, so we both—know, where we stand.”

“I’m not _going_ on dates with other people.” David buried his hand in the sweater. He kind of wanted to tear it up, even though it was one of their most expensive products, because he was thinking of Jake. It had happened _just six months ago_ ; it had happened even here, in this Podunk godforsaken little town, where David had thought he was seeing someone but they were also seeing his only friend, and Jake hadn’t talked about it, hadn’t felt the need to even mention it. And then Jake had wanted a _threesome_ , which usually only happened when girls David was with found out he liked guys, and suddenly they didn’t want him for themselves any more; they were perfectly fine sharing him.

“I know,” Patrick said, putting a hand on his upper arm, trying to turn him around.

David didn’t want to turn around.

“I wasn’t trying to accuse you of anything,” Patrick said, slipping his arm across David’s back instead. “I just wanted to be clear, for the future, in case you do want to see other people.” A weight pressed against David’s shoulder; David thought it might be Patrick’s face, that Patrick was kissing his shoulder even though David couldn’t feel it through his sweater. “Just for the record,” Patrick said, “I don’t want to see other people.”

Ripping himself away from the softness of the sweater and Patrick, David whirled to face him. “Then why would you think that I would? Is it because I’m—” But there were so many words for David—flamboyant, promiscuous, whore; he’d been like a whore; people like Sebastien had treated him like a whore. People had used other words: flaunting and garish and comeslut; they used to call him a twink but didn’t any more; he’d gotten too big and too hairy in his twenties, easy. That was the best word for him; he was really easy. He’d made himself easy. He’d _liked_ being easy, because it meant that people might touch him and pet him and call him beautiful; he hated it.

“I didn’t think you would,” Patrick said steadily. “I just wanted to be clear on how we’d handle it if either of us did.”

“And?”

“And that was literally it,” Patrick said, “other than you don’t need to tell me what you’re doing with Stevie, unless you want to. I liked hearing what you were doing. I thought about you all—” Patrick stumbled over his words—“all night last night.”

“Oh,” David said, feeling suddenly deflated. He felt exhausted, actually.

“Come here,” Patrick said, except Patrick was coming to him, putting his hands on David’s cheeks and kissing him sweetly, but then running his hands over David’s shoulders, his back.

David tested it, darting out with his tongue to see whether Patrick would—but Patrick did; even though they were standing in the middle of the store, Patrick opened his mouth, tongue stroking David’s and urging it into his own mouth, and God. God, Patrick tasted like tuna; it was so gross; David didn’t care. He sort of wanted to fuck Patrick’s mouth with his tongue, right there, hard and far as he could go, but that was not the way to seem attractive to someone; David usually teased with his tongue, just sneaky touches, the occasional stroke into the other person’s mouth. He liked to make them chase him, and Patrick always did; he always responded, almost helplessly, tongue following David’s back into David’s mouth until Patrick’s tongue was there where it belonged.

Patrick could kiss him forever. They could just do this forever; David wanted Patrick to fuck his brains out, but surely David could be happy with this. He could be happy with this.

Apparently Patrick couldn’t, however, because he was getting his hands under David’s sweater again, warm and eager on David’s hips, dipping lower just within the hem of David’s pants as though Patrick really wanted to get a grip on those love handles, as though there weren’t enough of them. “Sorry,” Patrick said, pulling away, when David sort of gasped at this. David’s hips were a sensitive area. “We shouldn’t—”

“This is why I built the make-out space,” David said. “Personally. With my own two hands.”

“We shouldn’t.” Patrick glanced at the storefront windows, which showed that no customers were coming in and no one was paying attention to them. “During open hours, we shouldn’t.”

“You were the one who kissed me.”

“I know.” Patrick’s eyes tracked down to David’s mouth.

“The make-out space is very private. There’s a curtain.”

Something struggled in Patrick’s face, something that made him look—kind of in pain, and David regretted it until Patrick’s hand closed hard on David’s wrist, and then Patrick was walking, dragging him toward the make-out space. “You liked dragging me around,” David informed him, when they were through the curtain and Patrick had let him go for long enough to push him against their wall.

“Yes,” Patrick agreed, crowding him up against the wall. “Yes. God, yes.”

David kissed him again, teasing Patrick with his tongue until Patrick reciprocated, until _Patrick_ was fucking him with his tongue and it—it was not subtle, the way that Patrick built that slow, forceful rhythm. Then Patrick began to match it with slow rolls of his hips along David’s, a hard grind forward and a long roll back, and David had never had anyone do this to him when they weren’t planning on imminently fucking him. Patrick wasn’t planning on imminently fucking him. Patrick might never fuck him, if David screwed this up too soon, and David had to take his hands off, except there wasn’t anywhere to put them. The struts coming out from the wall were in the way, so he gripped those instead, and whined, and jerked against Patrick because he couldn’t fucking _help_ it.

“Are you okay?” Patrick asked, pulling away.

“Mm-hm,” David said tightly, nodding, not trusting himself to open his eyes.

“David,” Patrick said uncertainly, touching his face.

“I wanna put my hand in your jeans,” David gasped, “but we’re going slow, so I’m not, so—that’s what I’m doing; I’m not—opening your jeans. At all.”

“David.” Patrick’s voice was heated; he was still touching David’s face, and now he kissed him again—carefully, gently, but then the tongue was back, and Patrick was pressing into him—

The bell above the door rang.

“God.” Patrick turned away, rubbing his face. “God.” He adjusted the crotch of his Wrangler jeans, swallowing, breathing deep. He took another breath, then another, scrubbing his hands down his cheeks again. “Are you . . . ?” He ran a hand down David’s chest. “Stay here,” he said, then disappeared to the other side of the curtain.

Fuck.

The problem was getting dildos into the shower without Alexis seeing. David had barely done it since they’d moved here; he had to do it when she was away; he didn’t like the thought of even _taking one out_ if there was even the slightest _possibility_ she might come back to the room. He’d accidentally found her fun box when he’d been looking for his shoes one day; he couldn’t unsee it—she did have _great_ taste in vibrators, though, ew. Ew. He’d excised all of that from his mind; why was he thinking of it? 

He was thinking of it because he was hard and trapped in a storage closet thanks to _Patrick_ , ew; this was worse than Israel, where he’d had sex with Roda at the back of a bus. They couldn’t find anywhere else, and he should have learned his lesson, because half their tour group had found them; that whole thing had been a humiliating mess. There was no escaping from this situation with dignity; he had to just wait to calm down.

The bell above the door rang, and David thought the customer had left, but no, it was another customer, and another. At last David put on his sunglasses, put his wallet in a pocket, and pulled aside the curtain to find Patrick’s back, because Patrick had just rung up a customer and was handing them their receipt. Another three people wandered about the store looking at the shelves. “I’m going to go get a coffee,” David said, sweeping his hand along Patrick’s back as he moved out from behind him. “I taste like tuna.”

“Get me a tea?” Patrick said, sounding somewhat strangled. “An iced tea?”

David bit down his smile, then went to get him an iced tea.

*

At four forty-five, Patrick asked David to the movies.

“You mean the drive-in?” David said skeptically.

“I meant to ask you earlier,” said Patrick. “We were weirdly busy today.”

“It wasn’t weird,” David said. “It was merited. Our business merits clientele. Albeit—a more refined clientele than this town has to offer? But it was merited.”

“I notice you never say the name.”

“What name?”

“Of ‘this town’.”

David bared his teeth. “It’s disgusting. What movie?”

“ _ET_.”

“Also? Disgusting.”

“Come on,” Patrick said disbelievingly. “You really don’t like _ET_?”

“He’s terrifying.”

Patrick was surprised into a quickly stifled laugh. “The alien? Oh, come on.”

David gave him a look that hopefully demonstrated just how very little he was joking.

Patrick made a falsely sympathetic face. “Don’t worry. Whenever the little guy shows up, I’ll be sure to hold you tight.”

“That won’t be enough to save me from Spielberg’s trite emotional manipulation.”

Patrick ducked his head, smile falling away. “The problem is,” he said, looking back up at him, “the movie’s at seven. If we get cleaned up by five-thirty; it will take us over half an hour to get there, and we should pick up dinner, so—we should probably leave right after we’re done here.”

“If I was going to see _ET_ with you,” said David, “which I am emphatically _not_.”

Patrick pressed his lips together, but it wasn’t to hold in a smile. He looked kind of serious about this; who knew Spielberg could inspire such loyalty? “David. I’m going to see _ET_.”

David had been afraid he was going to have to confront this man’s horribly plebian taste at some point; he’d just hoped it would be later rather than sooner, because David was aware he was a snob. He was aware that at a certain point, it became condescending and irritating rather than endearing, but was it really going to happen over _E_ fucking _T_ ; it was a terrible movie. “It’s a terrible movie,” was all David said.

“It’s not about the movie.” Patrick’s arms were crossed over his chest.

David shook his head to clear it. “What?”

“I want to date you.”

“Why does it have to be on a date to _ET_?”

Unfolding his arms, Patrick exploded, “Because if we don’t go out to _ET_ , I am going to spend all night with you in that stockroom, and I don’t want to!”

David glanced over at the stockroom, a little furtively, as though it held so much promise. “Um. That sounds—nice to me?”

“It doesn’t to me.”

“Okay,” David said slowly, trying to understand—trying not to ask for reassurance, because Patrick had been clear. He’d been very clear. He’d wanted David, and David hadn’t reached into Patrick’s jeans. _Patrick_ had been the one fucking him with his tongue; David hadn’t done anything wrong.

“I want you,” Patrick said.

“Then what’s the—”

“I don’t want to experiment on you.”

David sucked in a breath, mostly because the thought of Patrick experimenting on him went straight to his cock. “I—don’t mind.”

“But I do. I do. I like you.” Patrick’s voice had dropped, and he was coming closer. “I like you so much, and I’m also finding out I like—I don’t want to use you to find out what . . .” As though at a loss for words, Patrick ground his teeth together.

David inched closer. “You can use me all you want,” he said tentatively. “I’m _really_ useful; I’ve been useful to a _lot_ of—” He cut himself off because of the way Patrick looked at him. Then he replayed his own words, remembering how he was going to stop talking to Patrick about being the Greenwich Village bicycle. 

Patrick looked sick to his stomach. Maybe he shouldn’t have gotten that tuna. “I haven’t gotten to talk to you in two days,” was all Patrick said.

“Talk to me?” David said, because they were talking right now, and he didn’t understand what talking had to do with anything.

“I didn’t see you yesterday—”

“Whose fault was—”

“Just let me finish!”

Feeling his eyes widen, David snapped his mouth shut.

“Sorry,” Patrick said, more softly now. “I didn’t mean to snap at you. I didn’t see you yesterday, and we were busy today, and when we weren’t dealing with customers, we were mostly—making out. And I like making out with you, a lot, but I like—spending time with you too. I like talking to you. I want to be with you—I want to be _around_ you. I want it more than I want to sleep with you, and—and that’s saying a lot, because I—I do. I want to—to sleep with you. I think. I mean—eventually.”

 _Por que no los dos?_ David wanted to ask, because he still really, really didn’t understand, but Patrick had told him to let him finish, and also—no one had ever said they liked spending time with him. It seemed like a weird thing to say, because David knew he was—really annoying, but Patrick seemed to mean it.

“I thought about it,” Patrick was saying, “all day yesterday. I thought about how we could just sleep together and then—then I’d know what it was like, and that would be fine. That would be fine, except—I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know how I’ll feel; I don’t know what I like, and you and I—I don’t know _us_ , not yet. I still don’t know how we work. I still don’t know whether you’ll be able to deal with the fact that I like _ET_ and Mumford and Sons—”

David was _extremely proud_ of how silent he had been about Mumford & Sons, but then he realized it wouldn’t be a good idea to open his mouth to brag about being silent, so he closed it again.

“—or whether I’ll be able to deal with the fact that you try to dictate what I eat for lunch.”

David wanted to object to that as well, but he really didn’t have a leg to stand on. That had been a shitty thing to do; he saw that now. Why hadn’t Patrick said anything?

“I don’t _know_ ,” Patrick went on, “but I want us to work. I want it to work with you, and I don’t want to sleep with you until I know how it works just a _little_ better, because I am not going to be someone who hurts you. I’m not going to be those other people, David. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Fuck.

Fuck, if Patrick wasn’t sure that he could deal with the fact that David tried to tell him what to eat for lunch, how was he going to deal with the fact that David occasionally couldn’t stop himself from crying? Seriously, how was he going to deal with that? “Okay, I—really appreciate you saying that,” said David, turning away. “I just have something in my eyes.”

“David,” Patrick said.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. David ignored him, pressing his fingers under his eyes and blinked very rapidly. His under-eyes got so puffy if he cried; it was not a good look. It was not a good look, and David had practice at looking good. He had a lot of practice at this; he had a lot of practice at stopping himself from crying in front of too many people, or in front of one very important person, fuck. David swallowed and breathed hard, then swallowed again.

“David,” Patrick said, coming around in front of him.

“I’ll go to _ET_ with you,” David said quickly.

“It’s not about _ET_.”

“Yep, I know,” David said, still talking too fast, “but Drew Barrymore came from a long line of Hollywood greats, and I have sympathy for child actors; I try to support them when I can. I try to support Drew whenever I can, despite some of the choices she’s made, and she’s adorable in _ET_. She was never anything but adorable as a young star; I don’t know why they thought Josie-Grossie was believable when we knew what she looked like in her teens.”

“Josie-Grossie?” 

“We have to close up,” David went on. “We have to—get started now if we’re going to pick up dinner and make the movie on time.”

“David.”

David finally looked at him.

“What mistakes has Drew Barrymore even made? I like everything I’ve seen her in. _Something About Mary_ was great.” 

David began breathing hard, feeling much more like he was going to hyperventilate than just moments ago. “Drew Barrymore was _not_ in _Something About Mary_ ; that was Cameron Diaz, and it was a _terrible_ movie.”

“Oh, wait,” Patrick said. “I was thinking of those Spiderman movies. She played Toby McGuire’s girlfriend, right?”

David actually was hyperventilating. “That was Kirsten _Dunst_.”

Patrick smirked at him, and David realized he’d been had. “Well,” said Patrick. “Kirsten Dunst was also a child star. They’re playing _Interview With a Vampire_ next week.”

“Kirsten was amazing in that movie,” David said, calming down only slightly. “Don’t knock it.”

“How could I knock _Interview With a Vampire_? It was almost as good as when she was in—”

“If you name a movie she was not in I will literally kill you.”

Patrick gave him one of his barely suppressed smiles. “See, this is why I like talking to you. The constant death threats keep things exciting.”

“You do realize if we’re watching the alien on the bicycle we will not actually be talking; don’t you?”

“It’s the principle of the thing. Come on,” Patrick said, heading over to the register counter. “Let’s get things packed up.”

*

That was how David third date with Patrick ended up being _ET_ , a movie David hated. Admittedly, they didn’t watch most of it, because Patrick made out with him almost the entire time, but all of it—almost all of it, because David couldn’t stop groping Patrick’s ass, and Patrick couldn’t stop groping David’s chest—was above the waist and clothes. That probably would not have been the case had they done it in the stockroom, so David understood Patrick’s point, even if it didn’t exactly thrill him.

On the drive home, Patrick didn’t pull them off on a sketchy abandoned road to make out with him in less clothing, instead driving him all the way up to the motel, so they couldn’t even have a proper goodnight kiss. David hadn’t even gotten a good look at the scratches down Patrick’s back, and David really wanted to, and Patrick hadn’t even bitten him, which David had also really wanted.

But Patrick had said he liked spending time with him, and for some reason that was more important to Patrick than sex, and that was—nice. All of it was nice. David could get used to it, unless he had to watch more Steven Spielberg.

“Thank you for going out with me,” Patrick said, once he’d parked in front of the motel. “I had a nice time.”

“Right,” said David, who had been thinking about what he was about to say ever since they’d closed the store that night. The thought of uttering the words made him want to break into hives, but he was going to say them. He was going to say them. “I like,” he said, then swallowed. “Spending time. With you—as well. I like talking to you too.”

Patrick smiled with his endearing combination of sincerity and mockery, as though earnestly pleased that David had said it, but still laughing because it had hard for David to say. Most people—most normal people—didn’t have trouble saying nice things to people that they liked. “Thank you,” was all that Patrick said.

“And I—” David didn’t know what he was doing. He hadn’t planned on saying more. “I don’t want you to think that I want you—just for . . .” David tried to think of a phrase that included _making out in the stockroom_ as well as _lots of sex_ , but just ended up doing things with his mouth.

“I didn’t think you did.”

“I usually do,” David blurted, and this was non-essential information; he didn’t know why he was telling Patrick this; he wasn’t supposed to tell Patrick things like this. “I’m not usually very . . .”

“Patient?”

“Substantial,” David said loudly. “I don’t always consider—I’ve been very shallow in the past; I can be shallow.”

“I don’t think you could ever be insubstantial.”

“Of course not,” David snapped. “There’s a lot of substance—” he gestured all over his body—“here. I noticed you didn’t say I couldn’t be shallow.”

Patrick smiled at him.

“I just mean I’ve never—had someone, who wanted—” _me_ , but that was pathetic, so David couldn’t say it. “I just don’t normally do it like this, so I might not always—know what you want.”

“You’re doing fine.”

“Right,” David said swiftly. “I meant, if I know, I can do it.”

“I didn’t doubt it.”

“I meant,” David said, because Patrick wasn’t getting this. “I can do whatever you—I mean I can’t do _anything_ you want because I am literally incapable of—so many things, but I mean I . . .” David gestured with his hands, because this wasn’t coming out right. “You can just tell me. I’ll do whatever you want.”

“David,” Patrick said, and David could tell from Patrick’s voice that he had said something wrong. “I appreciate what you’re trying to say—I think? But I don’t want you to do whatever I want. I want to do things we both want. You can tell me no. You just—have to respect it if I say no.”

“But I have,” David said, looking at him in blank horror. “I’ve tried _really hard_ to go as slow as I possibly—”

“And I really appreciate that.” Patrick put his hand on his thigh. “Maybe try not to take everything I say as an accusation?”

David looked down in confusion at Patrick’s hand. _Not everything is about you_ , David’s psychoanalyst had told him.

“I appreciate how slow we’ve been going,” Patrick said, rubbing David’s thigh. “I appreciate everything about everything we’ve done together, and everything we did tonight. Let’s just keep doing that, okay?”

“Well, then—maybe you should stop rubbing my thigh.”

Patrick laughed, but he stopped, leaning over to kiss David on the cheek. “Goodnight, David.”

“I had—one other thing to say.” David swallowed hard, because this was even more difficult than the other thing. He wasn’t even really sure he could do it. “I—wasn’t serious about the tuna. You—you can have it—whenever you want.”

Patrick just laughed.

*

“You’re back late,” Alexis said, glancing up from her phone when David walked in.

“And you are literally always here,” David said, dropping his bag on his bed and heading toward the bathroom.

“Where did you guys go?”

“None of your business,” David said, closing the bathroom door.

“Well, maybe it’s my business,” Alexis went on loudly through the door. “If Patrick knows somewhere cute and fun to hang out, I want to know about it too.”

David opened the door because he hated yelling through it. “Patrick knows _nowhere_ cute and fun; we made out all night in his car; that’s all you need to know.”

“In his car?” Alexis’s nose wrinkled. “Wait, you just made out? You didn’t—”

“And that is the end of this conversation.” David closed the door in her face.

“What are you even waiting for?”

“I’m not listening to you,” David said, turning on the water.

“ _Ew_ , David,” Alexis said, loud enough for him to hear over the water. “Are you taking another shower? That’s _so_ gross.”

“I want to feel clean after that car,” David called back over the water.

“Oh my God,” said Alexis. “Please just don’t—make noise.”

 _When have you ever heard me?_ David wanted to yell back, but that would be admitting that not only was he going to masturbate in this shower—which he was—but that he’d done so multiple times—which he had, and it was a bitch being so quiet about it. David already knew he was going to put his fingers in his ass, and he didn’t know how he could do that and be quiet about it if he was thinking about Patrick. He probably shouldn’t think about Patrick; he should think about _ET_.

Oh God, this was miserable. This was so miserable.

 _I’m not going to be someone who hurts you_ , Patrick had said. David thought about it with his hands on himself in the shower and came; who knew something that earnest could get you off? It was wrong. It was so wrong; it was the opposite of what Patrick had meant, wasn’t it; Patrick was saying he cared too much about him to have sex, and David had gotten off on it; he could get off on that a million times. Fuck. It was pathetic, needy and pathetic and kind of salacious; at least Patrick would never know, the kind of person he was; David could hide this forever, forever.

David wanted to come again, but he knew he wasn’t going to. He wasn’t going to; the hot water wouldn’t last, so he turned the shower off, and if he did it now, Alexis would hear him. Even if he was completely quiet, which was literally impossible for him if he was getting off, Alexis would realize how long he had been in here and know what he was doing; he’d hate her if she did that to him, and it was too embarrassing; he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t. Anyway, he couldn’t, because now he was thinking about the fact that Patrick had basically said, _I don’t want this to just be about sex_ , and as soon as David had gotten a hand on his dick and a finger in his ass he’d _made that very comment_ about sex. He didn’t know how to do this. He was cold now that the water was off, goosebumps forming on his wet skin; he didn’t know how to do this.

 _I’m not going to be someone who hurts you_ , Patrick had said, but what if Patrick found out; what if he _knew_ ; what if he knew? How could he want—this? How could anyone—

“David?” Alexis was pounding on the door.

Fuck.

“David, are you crying?”

Fuckity _fuck_. He hadn’t cried earlier that day. He was good at holding back tears, but they always came back to bite him in the ass; they always came back. Blinking rapidly, he sniffled, an awfully unbecoming sound. “No!” he yelled back, once he thought he could.

“Are you sick?”

“I might have gotten some sort of disease from—Patrick’s car.”

“Ew, what’s wrong with Patrick’s car?”

“Um,” said David. “It’s a Toyota.”

“Ew,” said Alexis.

“I’m sorry if I—kept you up,” David called.

“That’s okay. I’m actually—trying to choose a nail polish? If you want to come out here and help.”

“OPI Hong Kong Sunrise,” David called back.

“What?”

“You never even opened it,” said David. “It would look really good on you.”

Silence on the other side of the door. “Do you know where my separators are? I can’t find them.”

“Oh my God.” David stood up from the floor of the shower. “I’ll come help you; let me put on some clothes.”

“ _Ew_ , David,” said Alexis, but she sounded pretty glad about it.

She should. David was excellent at painting nails.


	5. Wednesday

“I thought about what you said last night,” David said to Patrick the next day. They had both been moderately busy with customers and hadn’t had much time to talk until the mid-morning lull. “Both times,” David went on. “Actually, all the times we talked, yesterday, the conversations we had.”

Patrick had a box and was stocking the shampoo, but he turned around to suppress a smile at David. “Yes, I was there.”

“Great! And—you are under no obligation—trust me, _no_ obligation in this . . . great state of . . . ours to do _anything_ like this, but I have to take my sister out,” David said in a rush, “and I was wondering if you . . . might. Like. To. Come.”

“You want me to go out with your sister and you?”

“And now that has been repeated back to me without the ellipses, I realize it sounds like torture.”

“Sure, I’d love to.” Patrick smiled over his shoulder at him. “Where are you going?”

“I have no idea.”

Done with his box, Patrick slid his hand on David’s hip as he moved by him on his way to the stockroom. For a moment, David thought it was an invitation to the stockroom—were they going to make out? But Patrick was intent with his little box, as though he’d almost done it . . . absently. You could never know with Patrick, though; he was a goddamn tease; he pretended he wasn’t interested in kissing precisely so he could yank David around and kiss him; he seemed to think that it was funny, and David didn’t care because it was hot. So David was kind of trailing Patrick to the stockroom uncertainly, hoping for something, when Patrick came back out with another box. No, then. No making out. David went back to applying Rose labels to the bottles of hand cream.

“So, you’re taking out Alexis, but you have no idea where,” Patrick summarized, going to the shelves with the mousse. “Why are you taking her out again?”

“Because she’s depressed.”

Patrick turned to look at him, his expression soft and surprised.

“What?” David said defensively. “Is that not something . . . humans do? Take people out when they’re sad and pathetic?”

Suppressing another smile, Patrick turned back to the shelves. “I don’t know; after I discovered how much you like Reese’s Pieces last night, I was beginning to think you were an alien.”

“Okay, having Reese’s Pieces for _ET_? Was a stroke of marketing genius that I did _not_ expect from the equivalent of Riverdale’s movie drive-in.”

“Yeah, I heard how impressed you were last night. Multiple times.”

“It was impressive.”

“So what does your sister like to do? I’m guessing it’s not the equivalent of Riverdale’s movie drive-in, even though they are playing _AI_ tonight.”

“No,” David said loudly. “ _No_.”

“They are; it said so on the marquee.”

“I am _not_ going to go watch Haley Joel Osment be creepy; _Sixth Sense_ was enough.”

“Aw,” said Patrick. “I thought you supported child actors?”

“I do _not_ support Jude Law looking like a plastic robot,” said David, offended just thinking about it. “He is _far_ too pretty.”

“You have a point.”

David’s mouth dropped open, because he honestly was uncertain how far Patrick had gotten on his gay adventure, and the fact that he could talk about other guys being cute was a _delight_. It made this less likely to be just a phase. “Yes,” David said approvingly, “get in touch with your gay for him, but we do it in _The Talented Mister Ripley_ and the _Gattaca_ , not in Steven Spielberg movies. And what is this, creepy kids weekend at the equivalent of Riverdale’s movie drive-in?”

“Okay, you know that theater doesn’t actually belong to Jughead.”

“But I like to _believe_ that it does. Take me back when they have _The Holiday_ ; there’s a Jude Law movie we can all get behind.”

Patrick suppressed another smile at him. “I feel like you’re avoiding questions about your sister. What does she like to do?”

David set down the hand cream, putting his hands on his hips. “Alexis. She likes shopping, being taken hostage, social media, and—” He looked around, even though he knew no one else was here. “Okay, can you keep a secret?”

“Yes?” said Patrick, looking at David over his shoulder.

“It’s just—this is—very private information. Maybe we should go to the stockroom.”

Patrick turned back to stocking the shelves. “I know what you’re doing.”

“I’m not doing that.”

“Yes, you are.”

“If we _happened_ to start making out just because we were in there, it wouldn’t be my—”

“Your sister, David.”

“Ted,” David said loudly. “Ted. That’s the other thing my sister likes, is Ted.”

Patrick looked over his shoulder again, brow furrowing. “The veterinarian?”

“Yes, the veterinarian.”

“Wasn’t she engaged to him?”

“Yes, twice, and then she started working with him, and apparently my family is incapable of not wanting to date people they work with, which was never a problem before because neither of us had ever worked a day in our lives.”

“Let’s hope your mom doesn’t get ideas about the mayor,” Patrick said, turning toward him with his empty box.

David looked at him in horror.

“I realized as soon as that was out of my mouth that it was in really poor taste,” Patrick said quickly.

David was still really disgusted with him. “My mother is a _happily_ married woman—”

“No, I know; it was a really gross joke; I was just trying to lighten the mood. You seem, um . . . very tense.”

“I don’t like dealing with other people’s emotional burdens.”

Patrick made a sympathetic face that almost wasn’t mocking, then put his hand on David as he went to the stockroom again. David waited, but it definitely wasn’t an invitation. Patrick came back with yet another box.

So this was just something they did now, maybe, the way that Mom just casually trailed her fingers along Dad when she passed by him, the way Michelle did it to Barack, the way Coach Taylor did it with Tami—casually, possessively, like David was a beloved object Patrick owned. David had been treated like an object before, but never like this, and the problem was David sort of liked it even when it wasn’t like this; he loved being possessed; he wanted to be possessed. He wanted Patrick to possess him, and he was afraid if he made any comments about how much he liked it, Patrick might stop, so he swallowed, kept his mouth shut, and went back to putting on labels.

“You say you don’t like dealing with emotional burdens,” Patrick said, coming back out of the stockroom. “Yet here you are. Dealing with it.”

“She’s been moping about the motel ever since she quit her job.”

“She quit her job with Ted? No wonder I have so many texts.”

“Oh my God.”

“Why would she quit if she likes him?”

David made a face. “I think she finally figured out he hired her just because he likes her, but he no longer _likes_ her likes her, and I think she realized for the sake of her own personal growth that she needed to get out from under it. You need to understand,” David said, packing the labelled creams back into the box, “Alexis had literally never thought about personal growth before this. I said I was shallow? But I meant in kind of a broody emo way. I’ve never seen Alexis brood before. It’s bad. I mean, she did the right thing for herself, but it’s still bad.”

Though Patrick didn’t say anything, David could hear his silence. When he looked up, Patrick was just staring at him.

“What?” David said, because he could not interpret the softness in Patrick’s eyes.

“Nothing,” Patrick said quickly, looking back down at his box.

The arch of his neck was very pretty, but David couldn’t look at it all day; there were more labels to apply, and Patrick _wasn’t_ on David’s way to the stockroom, so he didn’t get to trail his fingers lovingly along Patrick either as he went. He might actually be becoming obsessed; this was, quite possibly, why Alexis had quit working for Ted.

“Anyway,” David said, coming back with another box of creams to label. “You can never tell anyone I told you this.”

“Cross my heart,” said Patrick. “So, you want to take Alexis out so she feels better; she likes shopping and Ted. Does she like animals?”

“Ew, no.” David grimaced.

“Shopping it is. There’s an outlet mall halfway to Thornbridge.”

David grimaced again. “Is that where you got that?”

“What?” Patrick asked, glancing down at himself, as though there was only _one_ article of that outfit that was offensive. He had on his usual belt and jeans and button-up with oxfords; it didn’t matter. All of Patrick’s lines were clean and perfect; Patrick would look good in anything, even off the rack from Kohl’s.

“Nothing,” David said quickly, looking back down at his labels.

“If we start packing up before close, we can be out of here by five-ten,” Patrick said. “If Alexis can meet us here, that puts us at the mall around seven. I can look up which places would still be open.”

“Alexis and I would suffer anaphylaxis at an outlet mall.”

“Why?”

David tried to make his face discreet but didn’t know how.

“Oh.” Patrick smiled at him. “Because it’s not Armani, or whatever?”

Oh God. Armani was probably the only designer Patrick even knew, and David’s face hurt from trying not to—communicate. Anything. He swallowed around the sick feeling in his throat. “No,” he said. “I’ve heard—outlet malls—” he tried not to say the words as though they were pieces of trash he had to pick up with two fingers—“sometimes—have—Armani.”

Patrick’s smile just widened. “You don’t want to go make fun of the clothes normal people wear?”

Blinking, David considered this. “I—that does sound kind of appealing, actually,” he said, trying not to sound like a bitch.

Meanwhile Patrick was trying not to laugh. “There’s good sushi there.”

David swallowed more distasteful feelings lodged in his throat. “I seriously doubt there is good sushi at an outlet mall.”

“Fine,” said Patrick. “There’s bad sushi there.”

“I do like bad sushi,” David said reluctantly. “Do they have rolls with tempura and cream cheese inside them?”

“I don’t know,” said Patrick, “but I hear you can look up menus online to see if they’re worthy of you. I’m not sure there are too many options, though. It’s either Bento sushi or Wetzel’s Pretzels.”

David considered this also, his desire to hide the fact that he was disgusting warring with his love of warm, chewy bread. “I also like pretzels,” he finally admitted.

Patrick almost cracked up, and David was embarrassed but actually seeing Patrick’s smile just break open like that was worth it. The thing that had been clutching David’s heart since this dating thing had started settled warmly inside of him, and David wished Patrick had to go to the stockroom again. David just wanted to touch him.

David could. Touch him. It was allowed. They were dating; it was allowed; David wasn’t going to maul him.

Setting down the labels and the cream, David went over to him, hooking just one finger under Patrick’s belt, but in front of his jeans, just at his waist. He tugged, just once.

Sucking in a breath, Patrick leaned in as though to kiss him. “I can’t believe you want to go to Wetzel’s Pretzels,” he said instead.

David tugged on Patrick’s belt again, then leaned into Patrick’s ear, his teeth catching Patrick’s earlobe. Patrick’s breathing ratcheted up, and David tugged Patrick’s earlobe once, twice. Then he licked it. Then he bit down. Hard.

Patrick made a sound, then grabbed for him. “David,” he said, trying to pull David’s head down to him, and David pulled away.

“I’ve been thinking about this,” David told him. “If we leave right after closing, and we’re in the car for—oh God, _four hours_ with Alexis, and we go—making fun of outlet malls and eating pretzels—”

“Sushi. Ones with tuna.”

“ _Whatever_ , we’re going to get back really late, and that means literally _no time_. For us.”

“For us to do what?”

David moved his finger against Patrick’s belt, tugging it a little. “I made us a make-out space, in back.”

“Yeah, I heard about that somewhere.”

“There hasn’t been a customer for twenty minutes.”

“Hm,” said Patrick.

David tugged some more. “I won’t untuck your shirt.” 

“Will you keep doing that with my belt?”

“Yes?”

“David.” Patrick put his hands on David’s face, kissing him quite filthily, full of promise, then pulled away, carefully removing David’s hand from his belt. “Don’t do that with my belt,” he said, then wrapped his hand around David’s wrist and began walking toward the stockroom, pulling David along behind.

*

“You have to tell Alexis you’re getting new pants,” David said, later in the day. They’d made out in the stockroom for about ten minutes before more customers came, but then there had been a lunch rush.

“Why?” asked Patrick, who was reconciling their inventory in the computer.

“I can’t tell her we’re going to the outlet mall to make her feel better,” David said. “It will make her feel worse.”

Patrick got that soft smile, which he kept doing; it was like he thought that Alexis being sad was _sweet_ , or something, which David guessed it was if you liked bittersweet romance, but David just found the whole situation unpalatable. “I don’t need new pants,” was all Patrick said.

“Don’t you?” David tried not to ask, but he failed.

Now Patrick turned to him, raising his brows. “Do I?”

David itched all over. “No,” he gritted out.

Patrick was trying to his smile again. “Is something wrong with my pants?” he asked innocently.

“You,” David said, then took very deep breaths. In his search for something polite to say he came across, _They could be improved if I was inside of them_ , which would not have been at all appropriate, except it helped him realize the answer was in fact very simple. “You look very good in your pants,” he said at last, and it wasn’t hard to say at all, because it was true. “Even your Wranglers.”

Patrick frowned at him. “Wranglers?”

“Your _Wranglers_ ,” David said. “Your _jeans_.”

“I have Wranglers?” Patrick said. “Huh. I thought they were all Levi’s.”

“Oh my God,” David said loudly, because he thought he was going to choke. “You have Wranglers, two pairs of Levi’s, jeans from The Gap, and Dockers. You have fucking _Dockers_ , Patrick.”

Patrick thought this was very funny. “I have a pair of sweatpants too, if you, you know, want to look in my closet.”

“What brand?” David asked, even though he was horrified and felt physically ill.

“What?” Patrick’s brow furrowed.

“What _brand_ of sweatpants?”

“The . . . _gray_ kind?”

“Oh my God.” David put his hands over his face, and Patrick laughed some more.

“It’s okay, David,” Patrick said. “I know you never would have dated me in your other life.”

David took his hands off his face, horror and illness instantly disappearing, as though a bucket of cold water had been poured over him. “That’s not funny,” he snapped.

“I mean,” said Patrick. “It kind of is.”

Patrick _did_ think it was funny. He didn’t realize how awful it was, how terrible that thing he had said was, how—how David wouldn’t have noticed Patrick had he met him in his other life. David wouldn’t have looked at Patrick twice, because David slept with models, and celebrities with Hermes handbags, and socialites who designed things in Milan; David’s life had been thousand-dollar sunglasses and stop-signs styled as significant, expensive art pieces and lines of coke on mirrored glass. David had spent two thousand dollars on a single hair-cut, and he’d watched people having sex as a performance, and he’d hoped it made him beautiful. He shuddered to think of Patrick with his clean tidy face and his clean tidy clothes and his clean tidy _soul_ at one of those parties, where David had let three different people fuck him in a row because they’d said he sounded gorgeous when he came.

“Come on,” Patrick laughed. “I was kidding around.”

“Well, I’m not kidding,” David bit out. “I think you look amazing.”

Patrick still looked amused. “Thanks.”

“I think you look perfect,” David heard himself say. “I think you look perfect in your straight-leg, mid-range denims, with your shirts from Target and Old Navy Sweaters, with your Kenneth Cole shoes and your _extremely_ straight haircut; you look— _so_ good; I want to take you apart; I want to make you pant; I want to make you cry out for Holy Jesus, which I imagine is the foundation of your small town rural upbringing, and I . . . didn’t mean to say any of that, and I’m sorry, but I think you should know.”

Patrick’s pretty skin was turning scarlet.

“And I want to eat you alive when you blush,” David added.

“Yes, thank you,” Patrick said, very quickly. “My mother does love Jesus—um. Thank you.” He coughed.

David didn’t think he’d made himself clear just by saying how much he wanted to fuck Patrick. He’d sort of wanted to say the _opposite_ of that, that Patrick was more to him than something physical, that he was beautiful because what was on the outside was inside him too. “I think you’re gorgeous,” David said, a little helplessly. 

“I know, you—said that before.”

“I did?” David said, because he wasn’t really in the habit of telling people what they meant to him.

“Yes, when we were—sorry, that was a lot, just then. I’ve never been to Old Navy. Do you want coffee? I want a tea.” Patrick moved out from behind the register counter, heading toward the door.

“That—wasn’t slow,” David said.

“Not very, David.”

Patrick didn’t sound angry, but it didn’t stop anxiety from heedlessly tying knots in David’s stomach. Meanwhile Patrick lingered by the door, his face splotched with color. Then, as though deciding something, he came swiftly to David, pulling David’s face down to his, then kissing him hard. “I wanna eat you too,” he said, then let go. “And now that I’ve said it, I realize it wasn’t exactly the right choice of words.”

“I liked it,” David said, feeling his face twisting into a smile. “I taste delicious. Unlike some people who eat tuna.”

“Yeah, we’ll see what you taste like after a Wetzel’s pretzel,” Patrick said, walking out the door and leaving David behind to try to push his smiles back into his cheeks.

 _I wanna eat you too_. God, Patrick was magic, and David never would have found him in that other life. He would never have known Patrick existed, and for the first time since coming here, David realized he was glad he lived in Schitt’s Creek.

*

Alexis would never believe that David would voluntarily go to an outlet mall, which was why Patrick had to come up with something to shop for. Luckily, Patrick said he needed to get something for his mother’s birthday, and though he really wanted to gift her something from the store, it served as an excuse. Alexis came only twenty-five minutes late, which was perfect because the time David had given her was thirty minutes early.

They piled into Patrick’s Toyota, where David had forgotten about the music situation. It might be okay, because Alexis could literally talk for hours, except that was the whole problem; wasn’t it? If it had been just Patrick and him, they could have talked—because Patrick liked talking to him, apparently—but now they were going to have to listen to Alexis for two hours. Patrick had additional music in the backseat, however, which was where Alexis was.

“Oooh CD binders.” Alexis hummed. “It’s like when David was a teenager!”

“Oh my God,” David said, whipping his head around to the back. “I am literally five years older than you; you had CD binders too.”

“Carbon Leaf?” said Alexis.

“We’re not listening to that,” said David.

“Neko Case?”

“We’re not listening to that either,” said David.

“Your brother thinks I have excellent taste,” Patrick called to the back. They were on the freeway, and Patrick was concentrating on the road, but he had on a great big smile. “He told me so earlier today. What did he say? Something about . . .”

David waited with expectedly raised brows, because was Patrick baiting David with this? Really? In front of his _sister_?

“Oh, I remember,” Patrick said, glancing at Alexis in the rearview. “He said he really loved my style.” Patrick glanced at David then, grinning.

Holy fuck, that bastard.

“That’s sweet, David,” Alexis said, absently turning pages in this horrible CD binder. “Oh, I think this is the musical section.”

“Which musicals?” David whipped around again.

“So, you always knew you were gay?” Alexis asked, and Patrick glanced at David quickly.

 _I didn’t_ , David mouthed, holding up his hands, because he hadn’t told Alexis anything, and Stevie could really keep a secret. “Liking musicals doesn’t make you gay, Alexis,” David told her.

“But you are gay,” Alexis told Patrick, stroking her hair and looking at the CDs. “Or bi, or fluid, or pan. David’s pan. Well, I’m sure you know.”

Patrick gave David another inscrutable look.

“He knows,” David said loudly.

“I was in theater in high school,” Patrick said, facing the road again, “and if you were going to do theater in my high school, you did musicals, so I started liking them then.”

“Ooh, so you can sing?” asked Alexis.

“A little,” said Patrick. “I played guitar and wrote music, too.”

Alexis squeaked, and David looked at Patrick because David hadn’t known that, about the guitar and music, or even the musicals, really. He still didn’t know much about Patrick, actually, and David resented that Alexis seemed to be getting more out of him in the last five minutes than David had in the entire six weeks he’d known him, but there was a more pressing issue at hand. “There will be no singing in this car,” he announced.

“David likes to sing,” said Alexis. “He’s terrible.”

“Um, she’s wrong,” said David. “I hate singing, and I’m terrific at it.”

“So first you get him drunk,” said Alexis. “Then you find something by Mariah—”

“Okay, stop,” said David.

“Good to know,” said Patrick.

“Theater in high school,” Alexis went on, giving Patrick a flirty tap on the shoulder. “That’s so cute, Patrick! Did you like, play Romeo, and have a crush on that other guy from Shakespeare; what’s his name, McBeth, and then—make out in the green room and like, pop five extra valiums in your director’s coffee so you can do the scene how you want?”

“It’s Macbeth,” David said. “ _Mac_. It’s not McDonald’s.”

“That was the part you objected to?” Patrick murmured.

“Mom always tried to give the showrunners uppers,” David told him. “Not downers.”

“But what was it like?” Alexis said, pushing Patrick’s CD binder off her lap and leaning forward between the seats.

“Ugh,” David said, because Alexis’s face was too close to him. “Put on your seatbelt.”

“He doesn’t want you to get hurt,” Patrick said. “Could you put it on, please?”

“It is on.”

“All the way on?” said Patrick.

“Ugh,” Alexis said, but she put the strap over her shoulder. “You two are just like old dads.”

For some reason Patrick glanced over at David at this, a little smile playing on his face, and David thought he might throw up in his mouth. 

“Um, so I just graduated high school,” Alexis went on, idly playing with her hair, “but I didn’t know any of the theater kids; I don’t think they were popular. They wore black and stuff? Like mimes.”

“Like David?” Patrick asked innocently.

“Oh, no.” Alexis shook her head. “David wore all _kinds_ of colors in high school.”

“Did he,” said Patrick, smirking.

“Can—we—not?” David’s hands were over his face, and he clapped them down over his face again for each word of this; he didn’t know why; emphasis was required.

“Everyone was in four-H at my high school,” said Patrick, apparently feeling kind enough to change the subject. “So we didn’t really drug our director. And I did play Romeo. And the guy playing Mercutio _was_ kind of cute.”

David took his heads off his face.

“What’s four-H?” said Alexis. 

Patrick smiled. “It’s like—community service projects. You can do a bunch of different things.”

“I did community service.”

“Good for you,” Patrick told her.

David’s lip curled. “She means judge-ordered restitution for a crime.”

“I also danced with old people.”

David turned around to glare at her. “When did you do that?”

“Um,” said Alexis, “I did it with Ted; I thought it was going to be just old people and their smells, but it was really sweet, actually. I mean, don’t get me wrong; I still don’t like old people, and biddies were salty, but—they really liked Ted, which is understandable because they’re old and have literally no one else to talk to, and Ted is so sweet. He does a lot of community service, actually? He does this—gross stuff to cats and dogs for free, just to be nice, and—have you met Ted, Patrick?”

David darted a fearful look at Patrick, because Alexis talked about Ted way too much, but usually it was just a mention here or there. When she started going grandiloquent about Ted, that was when she got quiet and despondent afterwards; she got _broody_ , and like David had told Patrick, Alexis wasn’t broody. Broody was bad.

Patrick met David’s gaze. _What should I say?_ Patrick mouthed.

David moved his shoulders around in panic, and then Patrick was glancing back at Alexis in the rearview. “I think I met him at the opening for the store.” 

“Yeah, he came with me—as a friend,” she added sharply. “He got me a pencil for my graduation; it was so sweet. He always thinks of things like that? He tried on that Cedar Dragon cologne. That’s good cologne, David. It smelled good on him. Maybe I should get him some? But that would be weird, right? But he got me a pencil.”

 _She needs to stop_ , David mouthed at Patrick, but Patrick gave him a helpless little shrug.

David gritted his teeth, then put his head back between the seats. “I thought you were selecting music for us?” 

Patrick’s hand settled onto David’s knee, and David put his hand on top for strength, because he hated this; he hated other people’s problems, and he hated seeing Alexis like this.

Alexis had been stroking her hair, looking almost vacantly out the window, but at David’s words she snapped back into the present, looking down at the CD binder beside her on the seat. “There’s nothing to choose from here,” she said. “It’s not my kind of music.”

“Maybe you can just read us the titles,” Patrick suggested, and David leaned back to toss him a grateful look. Patrick went on, “Then David can tell us how horrible my taste is.”

“I thought you said he said he liked your taste? Aw!” Alexis scooted up in her seat, leaning in between the chairs again. “Look at you two cuddling.”

Patrick took his hand away. “We’re not cuddling,” David snapped. Then, more gently, he went on, “We were on musicals. What’s next? More _folksy_ music?”

“Um,” Alexis said, looking down at the CD binder in her lap. “I think there’s some religious stuff?”

Uh-oh. Uh-oh. If Patrick liked _Christian rock_ this might not end well.

“Are you talking about _The Book of Mormon_?” asked Patrick.

“Racist,” said David.

“Mm-hm,” said Alexis. “And there’s this one called _Jesus Christ Superstar_.”

“Superstar isn’t _religious_ ,” said David.

“Those are also musicals,” Patrick told Alexis. “I’m not religious, but my family is, a little. It’s funny, David and I were talking about that just today.”

David felt heat flare in _several_ waves on his face, and despite being _categorically_ appalled, he also could not help but be impressed by Patrick’s blasé tone. He was going to keep doing this, keep teasing David like this all the way to the retail hellscape toward which they descended. 

“Did you have to escape from them?” Alexis asked. “Were they upset because you—weren’t straight?”

David put his head back between the seats. “Alexis, you are being _really_ unacceptable right now.”

“It’s okay,” Patrick said.

David moved back to look at Patrick, but Patrick was focused on the road.

“It wasn’t like some of the things you hear,” Patrick said. “My family is—a little conservative, but—my mom was really focused on Jesus’s love. She raised me on that part, being kind to people, and generous, turning the other cheek, that kind of thing.”

“That’s really sweet,” said Alexis.

“What about you guys?” Patrick said, glancing at Alexis in the rearview, then at David. “Were you raised—Jewish?”

David snorted.

“I think Dad has a menorah somewhere,” said Alexis. “I had a bat mitzvah.”

Patrick glanced at David. “Did you have a bar mitzvah?”

“We don’t talk about it,” said David.

“Yes, we do,” said Alexis. “David got a nose job for his bar mitzvah.”

“You had a nose job?” Patrick asked, glancing at David, startled.

David met his gaze quellingly. “I said we’re not talking about it.”

“I think we’re to the old people stuff?” Alexis said, apparently still flipping through Patrick’s binder.

“Who?” David whipped around again.

“Garth Brooks?”

David gasped in horror.

“I grew up on it,” Patrick said. “He’s a classic.”

“Classic.” David was so appalled that he didn’t even know what to do with his limbs.

“Steve Earle,” Alexis went on. “Reba McEntire, George Strait—”

“Oh my God.” David covered his face.

“Cheer up!” Patrick said heartily, slapping him on the shoulder. “We only have to be in the car for another hour and a half!”

*

They got sushi, and Alexis did not suffer anaphylaxis at the outlet mall. Patrick kept saying he didn’t know what to get his mom, so Alexis started shopping for her for him, which was really in Alexis’s wheelhouse, and then because she was Alexis, she started shopping for Patrick too. David might have liked this at one point; he really wished Patrick would at least wear slim-fit if he was going to wear jeans all the time, but now he kept thinking of Patrick at one of those parties and it made David want to throw up. 

There had been this one where all David remembered was making out with his best friend’s boyfriend by a pool, when what to his wondering eye should appear but a horse with a naked woman on it walking by. It had been a white horse. That was all David remembered. Some Lady Godiva thing, it had been so surreal. He’d thought he’d dreamed it, until he’d found out the next morning that the horse had been air-lifted to an emergency vet. Poor horse. David didn’t want to think about what those terrible people had done to it.

“How about these?” Alexis was saying. “You could try them on.”

They were somewhere called Designer Depot; it made David literally want to gag so he was steadfastly looking at his phone while Alexis buzzed about talking about coats for Patrick’s mother, but when David looked up at Alexis’s words, they were somehow in the men’s section and she was holding up jeans. They were Sevens, Luxe Peformance Denim, slim, tapered, clean pocket with tinted dye, and Alexis was right; Patrick would look very good in them. David turned back to his phone.

“I don’t need new jeans,” said Patrick, “despite what some people may say.”

“I didn’t say anything,” David muttered, still looking at his phone.

“Mmf,” said Alexis, “but they would just look so good on you! Just try them on.”

“That’s very nice, but also I can’t afford them.”

“Okay, but usually these jeans are like two-hundred and fifty dollars? And now they’re just two hundred. That’s a _very_ good deal, Patrick.”

“But I also just don’t think they’re an appropriate birthday gift for my mom.”

“Ugh, you’re right.” Alexis started to put the jeans back on the rack, then paused. “You know what, though? These would actually look very nice on Ted. I wonder if they have his size?”

David looked up from his phone, catching Patrick’s eyes.

“I think he doesn’t have a lot of time to buy nice clothes,” Alexis went on, looking through the rack. “He works so much. And he works _out_ so much; he’d look really good in these if he had the time to find them. It would be nice if he had someone to do those things for him.”

David’s eyes kept widening in panic through this little diatribe, but he didn’t know what to _do_ about it, when Patrick saved everything by saying uncomfortably, “Hey, you know what? I’ll try them on after all.”

“Oh!” Alexis squeaked. “Good, you’re going to look so cute in them!”

“Yeah.” Patrick smiled, blushing. “That’s the goal.”

 _Thank you_ , David mouthed, and Patrick smiled at him helplessly. When Alexis handed Patrick the jeans, she gave him a big smile, but then went back to sort of furtively looking through the jeans. “I think Patrick needs to find the dressing room,” David said loudly, because he could tell Alexis was still looking for Ted’s size. “And you need to go with him for moral support, since you’re forcing him into this.”

“Well, you need to come too,” Alexis said, hitting his arm. “You’re the one who’s dating him.”

So despite the fact that walking through this store literally made David’s skin crawl—a pair of Gucci jeans were _on the same rack_ as a pair of Guess jeans; what, were they ordering them alphabetically? those were both perfectly serviceable jeans; _why_ would you do that to them?—they all walked over to the dressing room. After Patrick disappeared into that pit of poorly cared-for labels, David tried to go back to his phone, but Alexis hit him again. “Patrick is _literally_ ,” she said, “so cute. With his little CD binder in his car? Mmph!”

“Yes,” David agreed icily, scrolling on his phone. “Cute.”

Alexis’s voice dropped to an undertone. “So why haven’t you—you know?”

“That is _none_ of your business.”

“But he _likes_ you, David. You should see the way he looks at you.”

Heat crawled under David’s skin, but he pretended that it wasn’t, biting down on his smile and focusing on his phone. “I see the way he looks at me,” he told his phone. “I’m with him _almost_ every hour of the day.”

“I mean how he looks at you when he thinks you’re not looking. He has puppy dog eyes. Great big brown puppy dog eyes.” Alexis made puppy dog eyes herself, along with a pouty face that she probably thought was attractive, but really wasn’t.

“Okay,” said David, “don’t say the guy I’m dating has dog eyes.”

“But he does. He _likes_ you, David. I don’t understand why you’re taking all those sad showers.”

“Oh my God, Alexis!”

“I’m the one who’s in the next room!”

“They’re just _showers_.”

“I just think it’s sad! You _have_ a boyfriend! He really likes you! So why wouldn’t you just—” She did this nodding thing toward the dressing room with her head.

“Because!” David shouted at her. “He’s special! He’s different! I like him! And he is _far_ more than I could ever deserve, and I don’t want to screw it up!”

“Um, Patrick.” Alexis’s eyes were very large, looking over David’s shoulder and then worriedly back to David. “Oh, you look really good!” she said hurriedly, rushing over to Patrick. Taking his hand, she tugged it. “Turn around, let me see.”

Patrick turned around for her, a chagrined smile on his face, and David couldn’t look at him. Crossing his arms and turning away, David pretended to look at his phone again while Alexis fluttered and made a fuss over Patrick in Seven jeans, talking about the fit and the length and the pockets. Patrick’s replies were laughing and friendly, a bit baffled.

David wanted to fuck Patrick in those jeans. David wanted to take off all his own clothes and take off everything on Patrick but the Sevens, take Patrick’s dick out and sink onto it until David’s ass could feel the zip and the denim; he wanted to ride Patrick until he chafed. David thought about that goddamn horse and the things Patrick had probably just heard him say, and he kept looking at his phone.

“—very hot,” Alexis was saying. “Like, so hot. David, Patrick would look really hot with these jeans and like, that Ralph Lauren sweater we were looking at earlier.”

“Um. Wasn’t that a woman’s sweater?” said Patrick.

“Tch, why does that matter? David?”

“Yes, very hot,” David said, buried in his phone and turning farther away.

“Ughhh, David,” said Alexis, but at last she decided to stop torturing everyone and packed Patrick up like a little package, sending him back to the dressing room. “That was so rude,” she said, coming up to hit him on the arm.

“Mm,” said David. “Gwenyth says Drew has giant undies.”

“Oh, she does, though,” said Alexis. “They’re like—huge.”

“But why?” said David.

“Where did you see that?” Alexis looked over his shoulder, reading the Tweet. “Why would Gwen say that, though? It seems mean.”

“First of all, don’t call her Gwen. You’re not friends.”

“Okay, but we kind of are?”

“You met her all of twice.”

“We had a connection!”

“And second of all, it’s obviously an in-joke. Drew obviously didn’t mind.” David showed her his phone so she could read the reply.

“Oh!” Alexis squeaked. “Gal pals! That’s such a cute photo?”

“The contrast on that outfit is amazing. I wonder if she—” But David could hear someone coming out of the dressing room. He turned around, and it was Patrick; David slid his phone into his pocket and went over to him, putting his hands on Patrick’s shoulders so he could kiss Patrick’s perfect mouth. His hand slid from Patrick’s shoulders down his strong arms, back to his ass, where David put his hands in Patrick’s jean pockets. His awful Gap jean pockets. “I like _these_ jeans,” David said, pulling Patrick closer by the pockets with an emphatic little tug.

“Do you?” Patrick was smiling skeptically, but he was already leaning in to kiss him again.

“Oomph!” Alexis squeaked. “You’re so cute!” Then she was taking pictures, and David was ripping his hands out of Patrick’s pockets.

“Alexis, I’m going to throw your phone into the—the cooking oil at Wetzel’s Pretzels,” he said, going after her, but she had already slid her phone back into her purse and danced away.

“I think we have to leave right now if we’re going to make Wetzel’s Pretzels,” said Patrick. “And Alexis, I think it’s important that we do. You know how cranky David gets.”

“I hate all of you,” David said, stomping toward the exit. 

*

“Okay, so, I have to tell you guys,” Alexis said, when Patrick had parked at the motel to drop them off. She’d taken off her seatbelt—which was allowed, David guessed, since they were parked, although he really wished there were more physical restraints that would keep Alexis permanently out of his space—and was leaning in between the seats, stroking her hair. “When David told me you had to get a gift for your mom, I thought it sounded lame, and that it would be awkward, because you guys just started dating. I mean I didn’t know if I was going to be, like, a spacer so you didn’t start getting sick of each other, or like a chaperone, like kept happening on mom’s show, or like if you really just needed a woman’s eye to shop for you, or—”

“Get to the point, Alexis,” said David.

“But I just want to say, I had a _lot_ of fun, even with David’s break-down over the pretzels—” Alexis was gesturing with her hands to illustrate this “break down”, which was insupportable.

“They closed early,” David bit out. Insupportable.

“It was nine-fifteen, David,” said Alexis. “They closed at nine.”

“Wouldn’t there still be someone in there, cleaning up the—salt? Or whatever? You’ll notice _Patrick_ and I are in the store after we close.”

“Okay, but that doesn’t mean you should bang on their doors,” said Alexis. “It makes you look like a transient.”

“I was promised pretzels.”

“Aw.” Patrick put a hand on his knee. “Maybe Wetzel will be there next time.”

“Okay,” said Alexis, “I said I really enjoyed this, but there won’t be a next time. They put like, five different designers on the same rack; it made me literally? Ill.”

Patrick suppressed a smile, the same one he always suppressed for David, except this time it was for Alexis, and David didn’t know why it made his heart hurt. 

“So anyway, I just wanted thank you.” Alexis squeezed Patrick’s arm. “You’re a really sweet guy.”

Then she started getting out of the car, and David looked around, instinctively checking to see whether anyone around him had heard this atrocity. “Excuse me,” he said, “it was _my_ idea to bring you,” he said, because Alexis had notably left him out of her compliment, but she was already outside, and the windows were automatic, and it wasn’t worth opening the door for, and Patrick was kissing him.

He was warm and soft and smelled like retail, and David put his hand on Patrick’s shoulders to push him back a bit. “We’re making out in the motel parking lot.”

“Just a little. You deserve me,” Patrick said, then began kissing him again.

David let him, mouth falling open a bit, moaning more than he wanted when Patrick slipped his tongue inside.

Patrick pulled back again. “You deserve me,” he said again. “Don’t ever think that you don’t.”

“Um,” David said quietly, thinking about making out with someone else’s boyfriend by a pool, and looking up to see a horse. “Okay.”

Patrick’s hand dropped from David’s face to his knee, stroking it a few times. “I really like your sister.”

David gave him a look. “She thinks Macbeth is in _Romeo and Juliet_.”

Patrick smiled. “I like her.”

 _Your whole family is kind of trashy_ , Cynthia had told him when she’d dumped him. “Okay,” David said quietly.

“You’re really good to her,” Patrick said. 

“Oh, I know.”

“I like that too,” Patrick said, smiling affectionately.

David took a breath. “My mom and dad—” _never paid attention to us so Alexis got into drugs and almost overdosed at the age of fourteen and we never told our parents because they really did care about us; they just didn’t know how, which meant they would have put both of us in rehab, so we hid it and ever since then I’ve been terrified I’d wake up and find Alexis dead or pregnant or pregnant and dead and literally half my life has been spent worrying about Alexis; I would probably kill for her_ , David had been going to say, but he thought about Cynthia, then didn’t.

“Yeah?” said Patrick, still rubbing David’s leg. “Your mom and dad?”

“I—it’s complicated,” said David. “Our family is complicated; they’re going to be talking about the fact that I’m here in this car with you for a week.”

Patrick smiled some more. “Does it really bother you that much?”

“Yes.”

Patrick took his hand off David’s knee, but it wasn’t what David had meant to say, so he grabbed that hand, laced their fingers together, then kissed Patrick again.


	6. Thursday

The next day David was doing pickups. Plenty of their vendors shipped their products, but with some of their regulars, it was just easier all around to pick things up; it cost less and there was less chance of anything being ruined in the mail. It was also good for face-time with the vendors, which David didn’t mind saying he was good at; he could be very charming when he wanted to be, except Alexis was busy being sad and alone again today so he had to take her too.

That morning Patrick sent David a text that said, “She said you don’t like having your picture taken, but I think you should know I have this.” Then he sent an attachment that was a picture of them in Designer Depot; the lighting was terrible, the background sad, but David had his hands in the back pockets of Patrick’s Gap jeans, and they were smiling at each other. David wasn’t even sure when Alexis had snapped that; he’d thought they’d been kissing when she’d been taking pictures; he didn’t remember—smiling. Like that. 

David had never seen himself look so happy. It was terrifying.

 **David:** I wish she’d taken a pic of you in those 7s

 **Patrick:** I’m guessing those are the jeans? I thought you didn’t like them

 **David:** I liked them

 **Patrick:** But David you said you liked my wranglers  
**Patrick:** You look like you like them in this pic

 **David:** The jeans in this pic are THE GAP stop it

 **Patrick:** So since you mentioned it yesterday I’m thinking I want to find an old navy maybe I could buy you a shirt there

 **David:** I’m not texting you today

 **Patrick:** Good you’re supposed to be working

David didn’t text him any more, and Patrick sent him six links to appalling attire at Old Navy.

Then Alexis sent David a link to appalling attire at Old Navy.

“What? Is happening? Right now?” David demanded, once he had checked his phone after loading the boxes of body milk into the car.

“Patrick is _funny_ , David,” Alexis informed him.

“He’s not funny!” David said, pulling out of Brenda’s driveway. “He’s a troll! Why are you texting him?”

“I asked him why your phone kept pinging.”

David glared at her.

“You weren’t even looking at it!” said Alexis. “I thought you were having a fight!”

“We’ve been going out for like, six days! We haven’t had time to fight!”

“Okay, but my record in a relationship is like three days without a fight. It doesn’t have to be a major fight, just a little—a li’l squabble.” She held her hands like a gopher and wiggled in her seat, as though to demonstrate the exact nature of a _li’l squabble_.

“Okay, but we are not _squabbling_ ,” said David. “He is _trolling_ me.”

“It’s so cute!” Alexis danced with her gopher hands.

“Fall down a hole and die, Alexis.”

“So cute!” Alexis did more dancing, though she stopped when her phone pinged, picking it up to check her text. After a moment, she stifled a laugh, then was rapidly texting.

“What are you—” David was driving, so he couldn’t snatch her phone out of her hands to see. “What did he text you? What are you saying to him?”

“Mm. We’re talking about how cute you’d look in this outfit we picked out.”

David felt like he was swallowing a dead rat. “Oh God.”

“He’s really funny, David,” Alexis said again.

When David got to their next pickup, he parked and then grabbed his phone, planning on furiously texting Patrick. There was another message there, waiting for him.

 **Patrick:** Texting with your sis. She hasn’t said the T-word once

This was followed by a huge ugly yellow thumbs-up emoji.

David glanced over at Alexis, who was smiling at her phone, petting her hair, her eyes bright.

David put his phone away.

*

David dropped off Alexis and came back to the store, where he switched up with Patrick. David hated unloading; it made him sweaty, and he was averse to most physical activities that didn’t include _stroking_ of some kind. (“Like breaststroke?” Patrick had asked innocently, when David had informed him of this. “You like swimming?” David had made eight faces, because this was before they were going out, and he hadn’t actually wanted to make a dirty joke at Patrick. “Yes,” David had finally said, barely hiding his disgust. “I love—swimming. And—bathing. Suits.” “Speedos?” Patrick had asked, still pretending he was innocent. “Yes,” said David. “I love—Luke Evans. In a Speedo.”) 

Patrick said he didn’t mind unloading, so he was doing that at the loading dock in back, where _he_ was probably getting sweaty. David sometimes didn’t mind if other people were sweaty; it depended on the situation, but he was a little worried that Patrick would put the boxes in the make-out space. Patrick would do it just to troll him; he’d been trolling him with Alexis all afternoon, but the problem was it would be kind of like Jenga to get all of those boxes in there without crowding the make-out space.

“So I have to have dinner with my family tonight,” David said, as they worked on closing. David was sweeping (reluctantly) while Patrick was reconciling on the computer. 

“Alexis told me.”

“Okay, well, you’re not dating Alexis.”

“Right, I forgot.” Patrick smiled over at him. “Something about your mom needing—what was it? ‘Some chill.’”

“My mom? Will never have chill.”

“What happened?”

“What, Alexis didn’t tell you?”

“No, I mean, she and I mostly talked about you. I picked out a skirt for you.”

“Okay,” David said, about to throw down the broom but thinking better of it. “I look great in skirts. This?” He gestured down at himself. “Not a skirt.”

“You do look great in it, though.”

David opened his mouth, realized he felt mollified, then went back to sweeping.

“What’s wrong with your mom, David?”

“What’s _not_ wrong with my mom; that’s the question.” David had all the dust and debris in a pile, then leaned the broom against the door to go get the dustpan, but Patrick was already jumping out from behind the counter. Patrick almost always did that, coming over with the dustpan to squat and hold it while David swept into it. It was much easier with two people, but David was perfectly capable; Patrick didn’t do it because he thought him incapable, though. That was just Patrick.

The stuff went into the dustpan; Patrick went to go throw it away, and David went to put the broom away and get out the other cleaners. “She found out Jocelyn is the hot one,” David said, when Patrick was back at the register and David had gotten the windows sprayed down. Time for a real clean today.

“The hot one?”

“You know, it’s a small town thing.”

“You’ve never lived in any other small town.”

“Right, but it’s a thing; isn’t it? Everybody knows which one the hot one is.”

“I . . . guess,” Patrick said, a little uncertainly. “So—your mom is upset because—she wanted to be the hot one?”

“God.” David made a face. “In this town? She’d probably consider it an insult.”

Patrick smiled at him with that folded-lip smile and his beautiful long lashes, so amused and bright eyed, laughing on the inside. “Okay, I think you’re going to have to explain this to me. Why is she upset?”

“Because of Jocelyn’s whole—everything,” David said, waving his hands around before turning back to the window washing. “My mom doesn’t need to be found hot. She’s just—glamorous and wants her style to be appreciated.”

“I don’t know anyone like that.”

“Oh, no, I need to be found hot.” 

David turned back to Patrick expectantly, but Patrick just said, “Hm,” and smiled down at the computer.

“So just . . .” David gestured some more, because these were big concepts. “If everyone finds Jocelyn hot, it says something about their taste, and it just reinforces to my mother, even though she already knew, that no one here can really understand or appreciate her—her—what she is. And then, it was my birthday, and there was a dead body, and I haven’t been around most nights, and then we took Alexis shopping and we didn’t take Mom, and now she’s lonely and nonsensical, and in the old days she would have just—well, I don’t know. She can be high maintenance. Which is an extreme understatement.” 

“She wanted to go shopping with us?”

“Of course not,” said David. “But she’s mentioned _several_ times that we ‘absconded’ with Alexis and that it had been such a long time since anyone ‘absconded’ with her.”

“I can’t really imagine your mother at an outlet mall.”

Great, so then David had to imagine it. “I—she’d like it, actually. She would be so appalled.”

“So, you would have had someone to talk to, then?”

“I’ll have you know that Alexis was also appalled.”

“But Alexis looked up from her phone.”

“Alexis is like Dad. She isn’t as savage. My mom and I used to watch the Oscars every year and it was _brutal_. Like a massacre.”

“Watch the Oscars?” said Patrick. “You didn’t go to them?”

David stared at him in disgust, but Patrick looked so earnest. A twitch was beginning to develop in David’s eye. “How would we get there, Patrick?”

“I don’t know.” Patrick raised his hands innocently in defense against David’s tone. “A limo?”

God, Patrick really was serious; he had no _idea_ , the world that David had come from. The hierarchical structure of it wasn’t even that intricate, but to someone like Patrick, everyone who made it to _People_ probably seemed the same. “We were a . . .” David gestured with his hands, trying to explain but also trying to hide the fact that having to explain this sort of made him feel like crying. “A _money_ big deal? not a _celebrity_ big deal; it’s different; there are intersections; it’s—we don’t go to the Oscars. We do go to Ronald Perelman’s parties.”

“I thought your mom was a celebrity?”

David curled his lip at him. “Well,” he said darkly. “Maybe you should come to this family dinner; she would love you.”

“No, I’m serious,” said Patrick. “Wasn’t she on like— _Days of Our Lives_ or something?”

“Okay, you are _un_ invited, and promise you will _never_ say that to her.”

“Not that one? _General Hospital_?”

Patrick wasn’t actually joking, and it was literally making David ill. “It was _Sunrise Bay_. Please, stop talking.”

“Sorry.” Patrick had on a rueful little smile. “I was just trying to—understand.”

“This is why my mother is upset that Jocelyn is the hot one.”

“Okay.” Patrick turned back to the computer. “Can’t say I get it, but I respect it.”

“Okay, so my point in mentioning the family dinner to you,” David said, moving onto the next window, “was that it’s at seven.”

“Oh,” Patrick said, sounding concerned. “You better get home. I’ll finish scrubbing the window for you.”

“What?” David asked, because Patrick was coming toward him. “It’s five-twenty.”

“Right, but you couldn’t possibly wear the same clothes to work that you wore to dinner, and you have to do your hair, and all those things you say you do to your face.”

David put a hand up to his hair. “What’s wrong with my hair?”

“Nothing.” Patrick was laughing at him, and David glared in disgruntlement.

“What I was _going_ to say, since it only takes me fifteen minutes to walk home, and twenty to change, is we have nearly an hour—if you want to.”

“If I want to what?”

David looked at him with an expression that hopefully disclosed vast levels of reproach, but Patrick had come all the way over here with his dumb jokes about David over-primping; Patrick had already known where this was going. Patrick was a troll. David considered not making the offer, but he wanted it too much. “If you want to go in the stockroom,” he said, somewhat grudgingly.

“You know,” Patrick said, taking away the cleaning products from David, setting them in the now-empty produce bins, coming closer to David and closer, until Patrick was crowded up against him. Patrick’s lips brushed David, but then he said—breathy and minty and amused—“I really like how you plan time to make out with me.”

“You said you’re a planner.”

“You listened,” Patrick said, murmuring against David’s lips. 

David managed to rip his mouth away. “Okay, you planned also. You’ve had _breath mints_.”

“What?” Patrick moving back in, lips against David’s. “Don’t like those either?”

“No,” David said, grudging again. “I—I like them a lot.”

“Good, I’m so glad.” Patrick was _mocking_ him, but then Patrick was kissing him, kissing him and pushing him back, maneuvering him around the table, walking him into the register counter and pausing there, because Patrick was kissing him too hungrily and thoroughly to do anything else. They needed to get _over_ the register counter and to the other side, into the stockroom, but Patrick kept kissing him and David—David was leaning back on the register counter; then he was lifting just a little to sit back on the register counter. Then he was scooting back, spreading his legs wide, yanking Patrick between them.

Patrick made this little noise, then his hands—his hands were dipping below David’s lower back, on as much of David’s ass that he could touch that wasn’t sitting on the register counter, pulling David against his body. Patrick’s mouth consumed him, Patrick still pressing closer, pulling David in and opening his legs wider, the over-fabric of David’s pants riding up his thighs. David’s crotch was tantalizingly close to Patrick’s belt buckle, Patrick’s hands slipping down to David’s thighs and stroking down them, again and again. Patrick had to tilt his head up higher to kiss him this way, but he was kissing so thoroughly David hardly needed to respond or tease; he needed to open his mouth wider to get more of him; he needed to open his legs to get more of him.

Patrick ripped his mouth away. “Put your legs around me,” he whispered harshly, tugging on David’s thighs, and David did it instantly, so eager to comply, and Patrick made another one of those soft, hungry sounds. They kept kissing, but Patrick kept tugging David’s thigh, as though to bring him closer and closer, as though to grind their crotches together, but the angle was incorrect and David could only open his legs so wide, though he could tilt his hips and lean back. This he did, and Patrick leaned over him, standing on tip-toe to push David down. David wanted Patrick on top of him, and the counter was not big enough for that; it would barely be big enough if they moved the computer and credit card scanner, and those had taken David forever to hook up.

Finally David had to break away, because his back was bent awkwardly, but Patrick immediately got his hands on the hem of David’s sweater, yanking up on it; Patrick was going to take it off him. David’s legs loosened on Patrick as David tried to pull his sweater down, David looking uncertainly out of the storefront windows. “Not . . .”

“What?” Patrick pulled back.

“Can we—the stockroom?”

“Yes.” Patrick moved away from him instantly, but he was already unbuttoning his shirt, while David slid off the counter and followed somewhat more slowly. Patrick’s shirt was half unbuttoned when David got back there, but Patrick immediately stopped when David appeared, moving to grab the hem of David’s sweater again. “Take it off,” said Patrick.

“Right,” David said, but instead he looked nervously at the window above the work counter, because he didn’t mind anyone seeing them making out, but he minded pretty much everyone seeing him shirtless. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t been naked in front of people, but it had been a while; he’d put on some since then, and he was usually drunk or high or some kind of combination of both those other times; those other times, he was _waxed_ —

“You don’t . . .” Patrick’s hands fell away, and he followed the direction of Patrick’s gaze. “Is it the window?”

“I just—don’t want our store to be indecent?”

“I don’t think the angle is right to catch an eyeful,” said Patrick.

David looked at it nervously anyway.

“Hang on,” Patrick said, then disappeared down the hall toward the backdoor. 

David looked around unhappily, because Patrick was probably right. The window was sort of high, and tinted a bit, even, matching the stained-glass ones David had reclaimed to hang in the shop, and even if you looked in from the outside, you probably wouldn’t be able to see the make-out space, because it was in the corner and the shelves were in the way. And now that David was looking, he saw that Patrick had stacked the boxes everywhere but the make-out space, keeping it very purposefully clear, and Patrick had seemed—so into it, God. Patrick had been fucking panting for it just like David had said he would be, except that David had killed the mood. 

Patrick came back with cardboard—a very tall piece of cardboard from one of the boxes for their shipments, which he propped against the work counter so that it covered the window. Going over to flick on the overhead light, Patrick gave him a smile. “That work?”

David glanced at the window, which was now almost entirely covered, except for the very top, which still let in some daylight. “Yes,” he said faintly. “Thank you.”

Patrick came toward him, and David felt very awkward now, his skin positively crawling. “Sorry,” he said.

“Don’t be sorry.” Patrick put his hands on the hem of David’s sweater, but this time didn’t move it. “Do you want to? You don’t have to.”

“Yes,” David whispered, but it felt far harder now, with Patrick standing here asking him, rather than in the dim light of the car, with Patrick kissing him, and for some reason David couldn’t move his arms.

Then Patrick was kissing him again, kissing and pushing him, back into the corner of the make-out space, Patrick warm and eager and so over-zealous with his tongue. Though Patrick kept kissing, his hands went for his own shirt, finishing the rest of the buttons. Patrick wasn’t wearing an undershirt, and then he was taking his shirt off, and David thought he should probably take off his sweater too, but it still felt very bright in here. Patrick got his shirt off, then came back to kissing him, hands running down David’s flanks, over and over, as though he’d just discovered them.

Patrick was beautiful, all that pale, bare skin, and David ran his hand over Patrick’s back just to feel the muscles shift under it. David remembered wanting to get close to that muscle; he realized, now, why he’d scratched him. Patrick’s skin was so perfect, David wanted to get under it, get past it, break through it to something rawer and uglier, until Patrick felt broken with need. “God,” Patrick said, pulling away and panting. “Do you just—do that instinctively, or—what?”

“Only to people who are pretty. Let’s save your back from me.” David pushed him away, switching their positions so Patrick was the one against the wall.

“Oh,” Patrick said, surprised, when David came in to kiss him again.

“I just want to . . . look at this,” David said, pulling away to run his hand over Patrick’s hard, sparsely haired chest. David could have done it against the wall, but now he was in control of his distance from Patrick, and there were a few things he could try. David started by stroking Patrick’s nipples gently, kissing Patrick while he did it, listening for reactions. There weren’t many, so David pressed his nail around the areola, which still didn’t produce much from Patrick. “Not a nipples guy?”

“Well,” said Patrick, a little breathy. “I didn’t think I was until . . .” He glanced down, and David thought Patrick meant what David’s fingers were doing, but that wasn’t where Patrick was looking, and then Patrick’s hands were gently creeping under the hem of David’s sweater, very softly touching the skin of David’s stomach.

“Just other men’s nipples,” David suggested.

“No,” Patrick said, closing his eyes. “I don’t know. Just—just yours.”

“Hm,” said David, because he thought perhaps Patrick just hadn’t been self-aware enough with other men’s chests, but the words made David smile anyway, an expression which he hid by kissing Patrick again. Gradually, David built feeling in Patrick’s nipples, getting them to harden by pinching, flicking them with a nail; now he was not being very gentle at all.

Patrick hissed, his eyes coming open. “David, what are you—”

The angle was awkward, and this would have been so much easier on a bed, but David was used to making things work. Bending his knees, twisting his head, David got his mouth on one of Patrick’s nipples and sucked, then because the pain had got a reaction, bit down.

“David.” Patrick jerked against him, and David blew on him, flicking with his tongue. “David,” Patrick said again, and now he sounded kind of lost, a little confused, but David wanted him to feel good; he wanted Patrick to like it; he wanted Patrick to like him. David kept changing it up so Patrick didn’t know what was coming, pain or gentleness or air or it could be anything, really. “David,” Patrick said a minute later, an edge to his voice now, and David didn’t know what that meant, so he stood up again. 

Patrick was kind of shuddering.

“All right?” David asked tentatively, it beginning to occur to him that maybe Patrick hadn’t liked it at all.

“Yes,” said Patrick. “Yes. You can . . .” Then he grabbed David’s hand, bringing it back up to his nipple, and oh, okay, except . . .

 _Why hasn’t anyone done this to you before?_ David wanted to ask, very confused, except his fingers were already back at Patrick’s nipples, trying everything David knew, and David didn’t want to make Patrick feel self-conscious about past experiences. Just. Someone should’ve taken better care of this boy, or maybe—Patrick should’ve taken better care of himself—explored his body just a little, maybe, and fucking fuck fuck fuck, what if Patrick didn’t know, like he really didn’t know, all the things that turned him on? Like, had Patrick ever even played with his own ass before?

David heard himself make a sound, terrified by the thought or turned on or possibly both, and he covered his confusion by putting his mouth on Patrick’s other nipple, biting and playing with it just as he had the first; he wanted Patrick to feel so good. Maybe Patrick _hadn’t_ played with his own ass; maybe Patrick had no idea, the things they could do together, the things David wanted to do together; just how innocent was he? How innocent was he? Had he even thought about David fucking him; had he gotten that far; would David ruin everything by wanting to do it? What about by wanting Patrick to fuck him? In the ass? Was that something—did Patrick even think about those kinds of things?

Except Patrick had said he wanted it. David didn’t exactly remember when but remembered that Patrick had said it; _I want to sleep with you_ , or something very close, and David had sort of forgot what Patrick had said he was waiting for. _I don’t want to be someone that hurts you_ , except David wouldn’t be hurt; it would _feel so good_ , except—except maybe it wouldn’t feel good for Patrick? David didn’t know, and the worst part was that _Patrick_ didn’t know; how could Patrick know? What made Patrick think that he would like it, that he’d like David, that David could make it good for him? 

David had never been with anyone who wanted him but wasn’t taking him, and it was terrifying; the responsibility in that was terrifying—because what if he did things that Patrick didn’t like? What if he wanted things that Patrick didn’t like? What if Patrick didn’t like it, didn’t like it with him, didn’t like him, didn’t like what he saw when he had to see David naked and look at him come and listen to the stupid things he said? David pulled away. 

“David, Jesus, David,” Patrick said, surging up against him, thrusting his tongue in David’s mouth and pulling him in, pulling him in hard, hands on David’s back, then hips, then—then Patrick’s hands were on David’s ass. For the first time ever, David regretted wearing pants everyone thought were a skirt, because too many layers of fabric were between him and Patrick’s hands; David couldn’t feel enough of them, even though they were touching—grabbing—

“Can you”—Patrick was grabbing at David’s hip now—“get this”—rucking the over-layer of David’s pants—“up—”

“Yeah,” David said, pulling up the fabric and holding it. “Yes.”

“I wanna,” Patrick said, but that was all he said. His hands were back on David’s ass—just through one layer of pants, now, and underwear, Patrick’s hands on David’s glut muscles, not very nice at all, fingers spread and _squeezing_ as though just to emphasize that David should probably work out more, or at all; Patrick was pushing David in against him, grinding just a little. Patrick could do it more; David wouldn’t have minded, and Patrick was kissing him breathlessly.

“Can I,” Patrick said, his mouth moving down David’s throat—his lips were open, but he wasn’t kissing, dragging his mouth as though too turned on to close it. “Can I,” Patrick said again, hands moving away from David’s ass again to tug at his sweater.

“You can do anything you want to me,” David said, and Patrick’s breath hitched.

Pushing David away, Patrick peeled himself off the wall, and David wasn’t sure what Patrick wanted for a moment, but then Patrick was turning them, putting David against the wall again, then pulling up the hem of David’s sweater. David helped him pull it off, but mostly Patrick did it, grabbing at the fabric and helping David yank it over his head, throwing it somewhere behind them on the floor.

Patrick turned back to him, his expression so serious and tender, and he cupped David’s cheek with his hand. “I wanna make you feel good,” Patrick whispered. “I wanna make you feel so good.”

“You are,” David said, suddenly feeling choked. “This is.”

Patrick kissed him, his hand stroking down David’s neck, over his collar bone to the center of David’s chest, where he yanked rather unkindly at the hair over David’s heart. David made an undignified sound, and Patrick’s mouth moved to David’s throat. “I wanna make you feel how you make me feel,” Patrick murmured. “I want you to know what it’s like.”

Patrick kept kissing David’s throat, but his hand moved between them again to find David’s nipple and perform some of the same tricks David had, which wasn’t fair, because Patrick had nipples of iron, apparently, but David’s were sensitive, and Patrick was obviously very experienced with being on the giving end because he knew exactly what to do. He knew exactly what to do, and when he bent to put his mouth on them, David thought he might lose his mind.

He’d finally worn a pair of looser pants, but he was going to lose his mind; he wasn’t going to get off. He wasn’t supposed to get off; he wasn’t allowed; they were going slow, and also he was supposed to have dinner with his parents later, except it was hard to stop due to knowledge of the future when the present felt—it felt—it felt so fucking good. 

At last Patrick came up from David’s chest, kissing up to the collar bone, then finding David’s throat, his jaw, his ear. “How was that?” Patrick asked, voice hot and low. “That good for you?”

“Yes.” David wrapped his arms around him tightly, trying to forget the fact that he had a dick. “Yes.”

“Good. Good. David.” Patrick swallowed, his eyes so serious, big and brown, holding David’s eyes as his hands slid down David’s flanks again, one of them coming down to grip David’s thigh, where Patrick tugged. David opened his legs, but apparently this was not what Patrick wanted, because he was moving back, hiking up the pant flap with one hand and with the other, hiking up on David’s thigh with a decisive yank—oh. Patrick was holding up David’s thigh against his hip—which was kind of a feat; it was a heavy thigh—and David, at last understanding what Patrick wanted, helped him, wrapping his leg around Patrick so Patrick wasn’t holding all the weight.

“I wanted to get between your legs again,” Patrick said, and it was hot, so hot, but David was really very certain that Patrick was used to doing this with girls—smaller ones, much smaller ones that were not heavy to manipulate. They could probably wrap both their legs around him while Patrick held them up. 

Patrick kissed him like that, still holding David’s thigh, hiking it higher, and higher—Patrick really just seemed to want David’s legs _open_ , so David was sliding down a bit, closer to Patrick’s height, until the crotch of Patrick’s jeans was lined up with the crotch of David’s pants. Patrick rolled his hips, grinding inward, and then he did it again.

“Oh,” David said, aloud and surprised, because Patrick was not being at all—bashful, about this; he was—they were really going to dry hump right here in the stockroom. Locking his thigh harder against Patrick’s hip, David pressed Patrick against him tighter, rolling his own hips to meet Patrick’s. Patrick was still trying to kiss him, but he was breathing too hard—not really from the effort, but because he was so turned on. Patrick was _so_ turned on, and David wondered whether he should stop him, whether he should remind Patrick that for some reason, Patrick didn’t want to fuck him yet, but it felt too good. 

It felt so goddamn good; Patrick was holding him exactly how Patrick apparently held girls, and David liked it; he liked it; it made him feel hot. He was hot to Patrick, desirable to Patrick, someone Patrick could want; he only wished he could get both his legs around Patrick and that Patrick would hold him up, but this was enough. Patrick holding him like this was enough; Patrick thrusting against him in his jeans was enough. David pulled Patrick’s mouth to his, coaxing Patrick to get his tongue in, encouraging Patrick’s tongue to fuck him, showing Patrick how he could time it with his hips and dick and David would take it; he’d take anything from Patrick; Patrick could take anything from him.

Patrick’s mouth pulled away from his, panting hard, his forehead pressing against David’s, and David felt mindless, turned on and mindless, Patrick grinding into him; David wanted to be someone that Patrick could use. “Yeah,” David said breathlessly, throwing his head back against the wall, closing his eyes. “Fuck me,” he panted. “Fuck me.”

Patrick made a strangled sound, jerking to a stop. David could hear Patrick catch his breath over and over again as he leaned hard against David.

David’s eyes flew open, and he realized what he’d said. “I—I didn’t mean to.”

Patrick finally allowed David’s thigh to lower, hand sliding up as David’s leg came down. “Jesus, David,” Patrick panted. “Jesus.”

“Sorry,” David said. “I didn’t mean to.”

“You’re good; just let me . . .” Patrick leaned against him, his chest lining up with David’s, pressing against it, his hand still gripping David’s upper thigh and some of his ass now, too. David wanted to stroke soothing touches over Patrick’s back where he’d scratched him, but David was afraid of what he’d said, afraid of going too far. If he touched Patrick of his own volition, David might say it again, because touching Patrick was addictive. His skin was so, so sweet, and he seemed too—alive, still breathing hard and kind of shaking in David’s arms; this was worse than being alone in the shower in its shame and frustration, oh God. Oh God. David still couldn’t tell if he’d fucked it up; maybe he’d fucked this all up.

“I didn’t stop because you said that,” Patrick said.

 _Yes, you did,_ David wanted to cry out, but he didn’t.

“I stopped because I wanted to—what you said.” Patrick’s lips brushed David’s throat. “I want to. I just want—a little more time. Just a little more. A little at a time.”

“I know,” David said. “I didn’t mean to.”

“It was me. I got—carried away.” Patrick’s lips brushed him again.

David swallowed. He remembered better now, the reasons Patrick had said he wanted to wait. Patrick didn’t want to be one of those people who had sex with him and left him, but David wanted him to be. David wanted him to be because otherwise Patrick would be someone who _didn’t_ have sex with him and left him, and David wanted something—at least _something_ of Patrick, something from Patrick, some memory that could remind David that Patrick had once wanted him. Patrick had wanted him. Patrick could just take him.

That wasn’t what Patrick wanted. It was still new for Patrick, still uncertain. Even if Patrick’s body responded to it, his brain still had to catch up with the fact that he was doing these things with a man; he had to get used to it. Tenderness opened inside of David once more as he continued holding Patrick in his arms, tenderness and regret; David hadn’t meant to push. The last thing he wanted to do was push. He wanted to lie open like a book that Patrick could read if he wanted; Patrick could read any page he wanted; he could dog-ear all the pages and scribble on them if he wanted; he could do anything he wanted before he got to the end, closed him, and dropped him off at Half-Price Books.

“That feels nice,” Patrick murmured, and David realized he was stroking Patrick’s back after all.

“I’ve been told I have the technique of a professional masseuse,” David said softly, refraining from mentioning that it was his mother who’d told him, because that sounded kind of fucked up. _Your whole family is trash, and that thing you have with your mother is gross_ , Cynthia had said.

Patrick smiled against his shoulder. “I like your thighs.”

David stopped caressing his back. “Um, what?”

Patrick squeezed his handful of upper thigh and ass. “God,” he said, brushing his lips against David’s bare shoulder. “They’re so thick.”

David swallowed past the lump in his throat, trying not to sound too loud or angry. “You mean thicc,” he said, even though Patrick couldn’t hear how it was spelled.

Patrick’s lips brushed his shoulder again. “I’ve never been with someone taller than me before. You’re bigger.”

“Well, thanks,” David said, trying to pull away, but he was kind of trapped, and Patrick held him fast.

“I like it.” Patrick wasn’t looking at him, but he was brushing his lips on David’s shoulder again and again. “I like it; you feel so—solid, like I don’t have to be—I can just . . . I can do what I want with you. I can finally do what I want.”

 _But don’t you really want to come?_ a part of David was crying out, but he had this feeling that Patrick wasn’t even talking about coming. Patrick was talking about—about liking David’s thighs, and David wondered what that would be like, to like his thighs. He couldn’t imagine liking them.

“I mean, except eat tuna,” Patrick went on.

“I said,” David swallowed, “you could.”

“Are you sure?”

“I—” And then David realized Patrick was making him say it because Patrick knew it was painful for him. “I also don’t like it when you eat mustard.”

“I’ve got a perfect date planned for us,” Patrick said. “It’s tuna mustard sandwiches, listening to country classics and watching Steven Spielberg.”

“Please don’t say these things to me.” David stroked Patrick’s back some more. 

“You have to have dinner with your parents in an hour.”

“Oh, is that what you’re doing?”

“It’s working, isn’t it?”

“Mm, okay, my off switch? Is a lot harder to find with a boy this cute in my arms.”

Patrick suppressed a smile at him. “Think about if we were _actually_ doing it, David. Listening to Brooks and Dunn! Wearing Dockers! Watching _Jaws_.”

David grimaced. “Okay, but I actually like _Jaws_.”

Patrick pulled out of his arms. “It’s a movie about a giant shark.”

“It’s high concept!”

“I thought you didn’t like Spielberg!”

“I like his early work!”

“ _ET_ is early! Doesn’t the shark scare you?”

“It’s _rubber_ on a steel skeleton. Why would that—no actually that is terrifying, you’re right.”

Patrick laughed almost helplessly, trying to stop and failing, his head dipping so that warm breath puffed into David’s shoulder, and Patrick was smiling against his skin.

“I just . . . thought it was cool, okay?” David said, hands roaming over Patrick’s bare back—scratching again, but not hard now, not to mark. “I thought it was a cool movie.” David scratched some more. “Do you really listen to Garth Brooks?”

Patrick came up, still laughing. “Ooh, did I find your off-switch?”

“Um,” said David.

“The CD was in my car.”

“Someone could have given it to you.”

“I’m from a very small town, David. Don’t take country away from them. It’s all they have.”

“No, I’m pretty sure they have—pickup trucks and opioids and Jesus and killing animals and Doug—”

“Okay, that’s my off-switch.” Patrick pulled away and began looking around the stockroom, at last finding his shirt behind them on the floor. He picked it up, along with David’s sweater, handing David’s clothing to him and then beginning to put on his own.

“I went hunting once,” David said as he put on his sweater, thinking Patrick would find it funny.

“ _You_ did.” Patrick tossed him a skeptical look, but he wasn’t really smiling.

“With Stevie’s family. I shot a turkey.” David straightened out his pants. “Does your family do that? Do they have tailgate parties? With like, beer—funnels? Stevie made me do it when I first got here; it was really gross, and now that I think about it, I can’t believe Stevie was at that party. I guess she didn’t have anything else to do until I moved here, but really, it’s very sad.”

“I’m not a hick, David.”

Surprised, David glanced up at him. Patrick was all buttoned up. “I never said you were,” David said.

“Uh-huh.” Patrick leaned in and kissed him, briefly, on the mouth. “Come on. We should finish closing up.”

David caught his hand. “I didn’t say that.”

“I know you didn’t.”

“Okay, but . . .” David leaned in to kiss him again. “Buffy Sainte-Marie is actually really great,” he said, because even though most of the artists Alexis had read off in the back of the car had been hard country, there’d been a spectrum toward folk as well, and it wasn’t as though David could really pretend to hate Johnny Cash.

“Gee, David, I’m so glad you approve.”

“Okay,” David said again, “you’re being mocking and sarcastic but that doesn’t hit my off-switch either.” He kissed him again.

“Aw, poor baby! You’ll have to live with being turned on! Your life is hard!” 

“Okay,” David went on, “because calling me baby does not hit my off-switch either.”

Patrick smiled, shaking his head and looking annoyed with himself that he found David so amusing, like he just couldn’t help it.

“It really doesn’t,” David said. “It’s bad. It does bad things to me.”

Patrick amusement turned even more incredulous. “You want me to do it right now,” he accused. “You’re angling for me to call you a _pet name_ right now, after you insulted my family.”

“One, I didn’t insult your family; I insulted _Stevie’s_ family, and two—I really, really like it.”

“I’m going to go close up,” Patrick said, turning to leave the stockroom.

David followed him out. “Stevie’s family gets her high—and drunk—and high and drunk at the same time and abandons her when she needs them and shoots innocent birds. They deserve to be made fun of. I don’t care if they all die in their sleep.”

“Finish washing the window, David.” 

“Okay, but—” David caught Patrick’s hand. “Your family made you. I’ll like them if you like them.”

Patrick shook his head again, though he was still smiling. Leaning in, he acted like he was going to kiss him, then just said, “Finish the windows, baby,” and pushed him away.

David finished the windows.


	7. Friday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There’s a weird kind of (non-sexual) consent issue at the beginning of this chapter. I’d be really pissed off if someone did it to me, but these people aren’t me, and one of the points I wanted to make in this fic is that I think these two people need to test each other’s boundaries in order to work. So, if things like practical jokes/pranks bother you, maybe you should stop reading here, or contact me to talk about it. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for following me on the journey of this fic!

Friday was David’s day off, though he was visiting a few prospective vendors so he was actually working, and Alexis was still moping so he had to take her out again. That morning, he’d had a text on his phone.

 **Patrick:** It’s been one week

 **David:** Is this about barenaked ladies

 **Patrick:** It wasn’t it was about us but it can be about barenaked ladies if you want

 **David:** I would break up with you

 **Patrick:** Since you looked at me

 **David:** I was serious

 **Patrick:** Cocked your head to the side and said I'm angry

 **David:** Do you think this is a joke

 **Patrick:** Five days since you laughed at me  
**Patrick:** Saying get that together come back and see me  
**Patrick:** Three days since the living room  
**Patrick:** I realized it’s all my fault but couldn’t tell you  
**Patrick:** Yesterday you’d forgiven me but it’ll still be two days till I say  
**Patrick:** I’m sorry

These were the texts Patrick sent over the course of an hour. When David got to “I’m sorry,” there were no new texts for another half-hour, and David thought Patrick was finally done and beginning to regret the end of their relationship. Then it started again.

 **Patrick:** Hold it now and watch the hoodwink  
**Patrick:** As I make you stop think  
**Patrick:** You’ll think you’re looking at aquaman  
**Patrick:** I summon fish to the dish  
**Patrick:** Although I like the chalet swiss  
**Patrick:** I like the sushi

“Are you having another squabble with Patrick?” Alexis asked, possibly because David’s phone had been pinging for two hours and David had stopped looking at it.

“We’ve broken up,” said David.

“No, you haven’t.”

“Yes, we have.”

Alexis played with her phone. “He says to tell you, ‘Because it’s never touched a frying pan hot like wasabe when I bust rhymes big like Leann Rimes—’Ew. What is happening here, David? Is it something gross? Does he like Leann Rimes?”

“I don’t know,” David said, “because I’ve broken up with him.”

*

Hours later, David checked his phone. The last text on it said, “The vertigo is gonna grow,” but it was from hours ago, and David thought maybe he should text just to confirm their breakup, but Patrick didn’t deserve it.

Another hour after that, the phone rang. It was Patrick, but David didn’t answer, because he was driving and also Patrick still didn’t deserve it. David did check the voicemail, which had a tinny quality, like the phone had been held up to a speaker. It went:

_“How can I help it if I think you’re funny when you're mad_  
_“Trying hard not to smile though I feel bad_  
_“I’m the kind of guy who laughs at a funeral_  
_“Can’t understand what I mean?_  
_“Well, you soon will_  
_“I have a tendency to wear my mind on my sleeve_  
_“I have a history of taking off my shirt._  
_“It’s been one week since you—”_

David slammed his phone off, deleting his voice messages.

*

David had thought he might swing by the store after visiting the vendors, but now that he was broken up with Patrick that was impossible, so he was moodily lying on his bed trying not to be annoyed with Alexis when someone knocked at the door. Alexis was playing with her phone as though she hadn’t heard, but David didn’t _have_ a functioning phone anymore since the guy _he was no longer dating_ blew it up. “I’ll get it,” David said loudly, in a tone that made it clear Alexis really should have gotten it, especially since David was having to deal with a breakup right now.

David opened the door to a bouquet of roses. “Um,” said Stevie’s face, trying to be seen around the roses. “It says, ‘For my David Rose’ on the card? So I think these are yours.”

“Aw!” Alexis bounced off the bed. “Is this because you broke up?”

“You guys broke up?” Stevie said, coming into the room as David despondently went to go fling himself on the bed.

“David says they did, but he doesn’t mean it. He’d be locked in the bathroom eating ice cream and crying if they broke up.”

“I did that _once_.”

“You did that once seven times, David.”

“Um, don’t you want to read the card?” Stevie’s voice was bright. “It’s addressed so nicely.”

“David!” Alexis said, and he could hear her dancing around. “He’s trying to make up with you.”

“I don’t want to make up with him,” David said into the pillow.

“I’m reading it,” Stevie said.

“Don’t read it!” David put the pillow over his head, but he listened to the rustle of paper, because maybe Patrick felt _sorry_ for what he’d done—

“‘Chickity China the Chinese chicken,’” said Stevie. “Oh, fuck, this is good.” Then she began to read, in perfect monotone, “‘You have a drumstick and your brain stops tickin’’—It says ‘tickin’,’ with no ‘g’. ‘Watchin’ X-Files with no lights on, we’re dans la maison; I hope the Smoking Man’s—”

“Dans la mai _son_ ,” David said, even though he felt like screaming.

“I know,” said Stevie. “I know the song.”

“What song?” said Alexis. “Is that what it is?”

“Oh, yes,” said Stevie, then went on to say, “‘in this one. Like Harrison Ford, I’m getting Frantic, like Sting I'm tantric, like Snickers, guaranteed to satisfy.’ Damn. He didn’t do the rest, though.”

“He’s doing it in _pieces_ ,” David said, in agony, because no one had ever sent him _roses_ before, but now he had to take them out back and stomp all over them and hope they got pissed on by wild dogs.

“Oh, Barenaked Ladies,” Alexis said, apparently having looked this up on her phone. “Isn’t that song, like, so old though? I was in elementary school; I barely remember it. Aw! David! It’s called, ‘One Week’! Is that because you’ve been dating a week?”

“Oh.” Stevie seemed barely able to contain herself. “My. God.”

“I can’t take this,” David said, jumping off of his bed. “Give me that,” he said, snatching the card out of Stevie’s hand and marching toward the door.

“But what do you want us to do with the roses?” she called after him innocently.

“Fucking burn them!”

*

“This?” David said, slamming the door to Rose Apothecary and holding up Patrick’s disgusting note. “Is unacceptable!”

“Hi, sorry,” Patrick said to the old woman who was currently browsing the bath products. “My business partner can be a little volatile. Will you excuse us?” But Patrick was covering up a laugh when he said this, still containing it as he came over to David, who was heaving for breath. He’d almost run here. Patrick reached for David’s shoulder. “Why don’t you—”

“Don’t _touch_ me,” David said.

Patrick looked remorseful, only he was still smiling and David was furious. He thought he’d been furious, and one look at Patrick smiling like that made it _so_ much harder to be mad. He was just _laughing_ , and David had actually had many people laugh at him in his life but never like this, never like someone was so helplessly delighted by him. 

And deep down, the very crux of the issue was that David knew he behaved disproportionately; he _knew_ that he made everything difficult, and Patrick—Patrick not only didn’t mind; he seemed to understand why it happened. He understood and he accepted it, and he wanted to make David accept it too; he wanted David to laugh with him.

“Come on to the stockroom,” Patrick was saying. “We don’t want to upset the customers.”

“That’s not what the stockroom is for,” David muttered, but he went, Patrick following along behind.

When they were both behind the curtain, David whirled around. “I don’t appreciate this,” he said, waving around the stupid note.

“Sorry,” said Patrick, but he was still walking forward, pushing David back into the make-out space, and David didn’t want to go to the make-out space because he was _pissed off_ , and yet he let himself be pushed there. Then Patrick was kissing him, and David pushed him away.

“We’re actually broken up,” said David, “so you can’t kiss me.”

“Wow, that’s too bad. I got us reservations for a nice dinner tonight.” Patrick sighed heavily. “Guess I’ll just have to go with Ray.”

That wasn’t fair, and David was still pissed at him. “I told you I’d break up with you!”

“All right,” Patrick said. “What can I do to win you back?”

The correct answer to that was _make out with me_ , except that David had accidentally taken this off the table. “Um,” he said. “Where are the reservations?”

“The Shade Tree in Elmdale.”

“I’ve heard that’s good,” David said reluctantly.

“That would be why I’m taking you there.”

“Okay, but . . .” David was trying to remember what his complaints were. “No one’s ever sent me flowers before.”

Patrick looked surprised, but then decided to mock him again. “What, you didn’t like them?”

“No, they were great. I hate this note.”

“Let me take care of it for you,” Patrick said, pulling it out of David’s hand and slipping it into his back pocket. “Now you don’t ever have to look at it again.”

“I didn’t look at it in the first place,” David said. “Stevie read it to me.”

“Stevie?” Patrick laughed.

“Patrick,” David said, trying to emphasize the severity of these crimes, “you made Alexis read _Barenaked Ladies_ to me. It was awful. She didn’t even know what it was; that song came out when she was in _elementary school_.”

“It came out when I was in elementary school. I Googled the lyrics.”

“Oh my God,” David said, closing his eyes and banging the back of his head on the wall in the make-out space. “Kill me now.”

“Well,” said Patrick. “You never _did_ tell me how old you are.”

David’s eyes flew open. “Tell me you’re at least thirty.”

Patrick laughed again. “I am at least thirty. Four months ago.”

“Fuck.” David closed his eyes.

“Aw, David.” Patrick’s voice was sympathetic, his hand coming up to rub David’s shoulder again. “Are you a cradle robber?”

“That’s not funny.”

“I mean. It kind of is,” Patrick said, but he pulled his hand away.

David had just turned thirty-five, not by any stretch of any imagination a cradle-robber. He’d had other partners younger than him, and he himself had been _very_ young when he—it wasn’t actually about that; it was just weird to think that Patrick was Alexis’s age, when in some ways he was a lot more adult than David himself. 

“So are we back together?” Patrick asked. “Because if we’re going to break up over musical taste it should happen sooner rather than later.”

“I suppose that depends on how good The Shade Tree is.”

“Really. Okay, well. If I’d have known dating you hung in the balance I would have—not done anything different because it’s the best restaurant I could find.”

David tried not to look as mollified as he felt. “I’m still working through some feelings about this.”

“Right, and while you work through those feelings,” Patrick said, stepping closer, his lips brushing David’s, “can we make out?”

“Maybe,” said David.

“Just maybe?” Patrick’s lips brushed David’s cheek, his jaw, and then they were under David’s ear, and David had forgotten that Patrick knew about that spot. “Still maybe?”

“Mm.” David ran his hands over the starchy fabric of Patrick’s shirt, smoothing it down that strong, glorious back. “Maybe.”

Patrick’s teeth scraped that spot by David’s ear. “How about now?”

David made an embarrassing little sound, then Patrick did it again, his teeth actually pinching skin but not biting down, and David gasped.

“How about now?” Patrick murmured, and it was becoming clear that Patrick was not going to bite him until David said yes.

“I still don’t know,” said David.

“Mm, David.” Patrick started sucking that spot, but then his fingers came up and began to brush the spot under David’s _other_ ear, and that wasn’t fair; Patrick’s teeth were still teasing—

“Okay!” David said, maybe too loudly. “Okay, you can—you’re allowed to make out with me.”

“Thank you,” Patrick breathed. “And I would very much like to make out with you, except that we have customers. It’s too bad, really.”

Then Patrick turned around and left, leaving David with his mouth open, and David wanted to be annoyed, but no one had ever paid this much attention—this much happy, affectionate attention, teasing, playing with him, provoking him; Patrick was a _dick_ , but it was still very—innocent; David had never had it before. He didn't know what to do with it; he didn’t know what to do with it, but he didn’t want it to end.

Heaving a sigh, he left the stockroom. Patrick was on the floor talking to a customer, and David just watched him for a moment, the curve of his neck, the flare of his shoulders, slim hips in terrible jeans. Shaking his head, David headed for the door. “I’ll pick you up at six-fifteen,” Patrick called over, because even though he hadn’t even glanced at David, Patrick always knew where he was. He always knew where David was, better than David ever had.

*

Patrick had a blazer on when he picked David up, a different blazer than the birthday blazer, and Patrick had probably gotten it at the Men's Warehouse, but he still looked good. “You changed your clothes,” David said, after he’d gotten in the car.

“Well,” said Patrick, “I couldn’t possibly wear the same clothes to dinner that I wore to work.”

“Mm,” said David. “That joke is wearing extremely thin.”

“I haven’t been using it that long. Let’s see,” Patrick said, extremely innocently. “It’s been one week.”

“Don’t you dare.”

Patrick glanced at him to smile, then turned back to getting the car on the road out of the motel, but he was still smiling. He looked so goddamn happy, and David realized Patrick could probably send him lyrics from alternative rock hit singles that had been overplayed in the nineties every single fucking day, and David would still want to be here in this car beside him. Embarrassed by this, he twisted to look in the back to find Patrick’s CD binder, when Patrick said, “I put in Buffy for you. As you know, a peace offering. Unless you’re doing that to show me your ass.”

David slammed his ass back into the seat, opening his mouth in order to be very offended before realizing Patrick had said he’d liked his thighs. He’d said it and he’d meant it, and maybe he meant he wanted to see David's ass, and David very much wanted to show it to him, and David thought he might use his still-open mouth to express this until he realized they were supposed to take it slow. Confused, David’s jaw snapped shut, and instead of saying anything he leaned in to turn on the CD player, allowing Buffy’s country folk rock to fill the car.

“So,” Patrick said eventually, “tell me about the vendors.”

It wasn’t really sexy to talk about work, except that work was how David had met Patrick and also basically the center of David’s whole existence. It would have really killed David to keep the story of at least one of vendors he had seen that afternoon to himself, because even though Alexis had been there, that was not the same as sharing it with Patrick, so David shared. In extreme detail.

“She had too many cats, is what I’m hearing from you,” Patrick said eventually.

“If we’re going to minimize the detailing of my trauma, then yes.”

Patrick’s lips folded into a smile. “I would never minimize your trauma, David,” he said soothingly.

David glared at him. “I don’t believe you.”

“What I want to know is what cats have to do with basket weaving? Because weren’t you there to look at baskets?”

“There was cat hair woven into the baskets.”

“We sell cat-hair scarves,” Patrick pointed out.

“This cat hair was not purposely woven into the baskets,” David said with an expression of disgust. “It was mistakenly woven into the baskets. It was sticking out of the baskets. They were furry baskets.”

“So, that’s a no-go, then,” Patrick said, “on the baskets.”

“Some of them were cute,” David said reluctantly. He could afford to be picky about vendors, but—well. He wasn’t exactly sourcing goods from around the country; if he had had a shop like this in New York, he would not have been selling half the things he carried in Rose Apothecary—though he would be selling the other half, because people did not understand how beautiful some of these rural crafts and goods were. Still, that didn’t mean he had to stoop to selling crazy cat baskets. “I didn’t like the way that place smelled. Also, you’re allergic to cats.”

“I’ll reiterate we sell cat-hair scarves,” Patrick said. “How did you know I’m allergic to cats?”

“You told me.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“Well, you did,” David said, and Patrick looked so surprised that David scowled. “Okay, I know I can be a bad listener, but it’s kind of insulting that you think I _never_ listen.”

“I just didn’t remember telling you,” Patrick said. “That was all.”

David thought back, frowning. “I think Alexis was there.”

“Oh, right! When I came to drop off your business license.” Patrick glanced at him with one of those soft expressions. “That was a while ago.”

“What?” David said, because he still didn’t know what that look meant.

“I just . . .” Patrick watched the road. “I didn’t think you were paying attention to me.”

“Patrick,” David said, because that was ridiculous. “I literally left a dozen messages on your phone.”

“I meant attention to me like that.”

“Like what? Like noticing you might die from a scarf I was selling? Trust me, I’d notice that on anyone. Janaela was very clear to be careful with customers with allergies.”

Patrick kept driving, and David was being defensive. He was being defensive, because apparently Patrick had wanted to be noticed; it meant something to him to have been noticed, but David couldn’t admit anything real, and not having to admit things was more important than Patrick’s feelings. It shouldn’t be more important. David swallowed. “I noticed you.”

“I just meant—never mind.”

“You are the hottest guy I have seen in this town; you laughed at me and then you helped me; I wanted to—” _suck you off behind the register counter_ , David wanted to say, and this was why he didn’t like to say real things. They always got _too_ real. “I noticed you,” David said.

“I noticed you too.”

“I’m hard not to notice,” David said, not exactly happy about it. “That’s never actually been my problem.”

Patrick kept his eyes on the road, but he put his hand on David’s thigh. “That’s not what I meant.”

“I mean—it is, though.” David looked down at Patrick’s hand. “Or were you saying you noticed my thighs?”

“Well, it was hard to notice your thighs in the pants you wear,” Patrick said, smiling. “But I promise I was salivating at every tantalizing glimpse I got.”

“Salivating?”

“Hm,” was all Patrick said, but his hand moved higher up David's thigh. “Tell me about the other vendors.”

David told him about the other vendors.

*

The Shade Tree was a lovely little restaurant, and David did not say that lightly, in a restored two floor Victorian style house. The interiors were a restored wood floor with white wainscoting and trim with mismatched antique tables for dining, and in back there was a patio indeed shaded by several large trees. This area was lit by tastefully strung glass bulbs, and the hostess seated them on wrought iron furniture of which David did not wholly disapprove. The napkins were white cloth, the cutlery heavy in David's hand, and it was very hard to retain even a whiff of his usual disdain when he had not been somewhere this nice in over a year. 

“This is nice,” David said after the hostess had gone, still sounding sarcastic partly because he meant it so much.

Patrick just smiled. “Not going to complain about the paper menus?”

“It likely means they change seasonally, which means the food’s probably going to be fresh and possibly local. High points.” David could not resist adding, “They could have printed on heavy parchment though. With a printer not from the early two thousands.”

“There we go!” Patrick’s smile deepened. “We’re not going to critique the font?”

“I don’t appreciate how much you make fun of me.”

“But _I_ appreciate it. Now that we’re finally here—are we still broken up?”

“Well,” David said, sort of wondering whether Patrick was going to keep putting up with this, but at the same time thinking that he had to put up with fucking _Barenaked Ladies_ so maybe Patrick could just deal. “I haven’t tasted the food yet.”

“Uh-huh,” said Patrick.

They looked at the menus, which really were very appealing and did appear to feature local selections. Once they decided on the food, they put their menus at the center of the table, and Patrick put his elbows on the table and leaned in. “You know, when I texted you this morning, I was just going to say how much I’ve enjoyed spending this week with you.”

“Um,” David said, because something about talking about having been dating a week really terrified him. They didn’t have to have a meta exploration of it, a sort of fashion commentator at an awards show; they could just—receive their awards, and otherwise pretend it wasn’t happening. “Yep!” David agreed falsely. “YouTube voice mails are so fun!”

“You’re not going to let the song thing go.”

David looked at him. “Are you honestly going to talk to _me_ about letting it go? When you kept it up _literally_ all day?”

“I’ve never been with someone who makes me laugh the way you make me laugh.”

Great, more. David felt fire lighting under his skin, except this sort of thing could actually char him, peel his skin back to reveal the raw ugliness underneath, and he sort of wanted more of it while at the same time hating it; what was he supposed to say?

“And,” Patrick went on, “since I know you usually screw around for three weeks and until someone gets bored, it means a lot to me that we’ve got through a third of that time and done neither. I mean,” Patrick said, tone revealing the humor underneath, “we’re either going to have to get really busy the next two weeks or you’re going to have to—break the pattern.”

“It’s not a pattern. I just said—” David didn’t remember what he’d said, and he wished he hadn’t said anything. He didn’t need Patrick to know how fucked every other relationship he’d ever had was. “I’ve been in relationships that weren’t like that.”

“Good to know.”

A waiter came, and they ordered the food, and when he went away, David asked Patrick, “What are we doing tonight?”

“I thought we were having dinner.”

“I mean after. You said you like how I plan.”

“Yeah, except now it really sounds like you’re making me make a plan.”

“Well I am not the one who is—I just want to go your pace; that’s all.”

“I have a plan,” said Patrick.

“Hm.”

“It’s not a good plan, but—it’s the best I could come up with considering—limited resources.”

“Hm.”

“It does hinge on you getting back together with me before we leave here, though.”

“I said we’ll see,” David said, extending his foot under the table to touch against Patrick’s ankle.

“David.” Patrick moved his foot. “Are you playing footsy with me right now?”

“Mm,” David said, finding Patrick’s ankle again. “Am I?”

“See, it’s hard to tell because you are wearing extremely large high-tops,” said Patrick.

“I’ll have you know these high tops are Rick Owens.”

“You know that means nothing to me.”

“Just—pretend,” said David. “Pretend you find it irresistibly attractive and hot.”

“Your shoes are not why I find you irresistibly attractive and hot.”

David bit down on a smile. “You find me irresistibly attractive and hot?” 

“Will you be able to contain yourself if I answer?”

“Yes?” David said, trying to sound credible.

“Hm,” said Patrick, but his foot moved toward David’s, stroking up the back of David’s leg.

*

They got back together when David was three bites into the huckleberry crème brûlée they’d elected to share, partly because David didn’t really like being broken up with Patrick, and mostly because the huckleberry crème brûlée really was just that damn good. After they were done with the crème brûlée they got back into the car, and Patrick said he’d noticed a puddle by the refrigerator at the store earlier that day, so he wanted to go check on it. Someone could have just spilled something, but it’d be a pretty big strain on financials if they had to buy a new fridge, so that was how they were pulling up to the store at nine o’clock on a Friday.

When they walked in, Patrick turned on the lights and headed to the stockroom to turn on the rest of them while David checked by the refrigerator. It all looked good, and when Patrick didn’t come out, David followed him into the stockroom. “I don’t think it’s leaking,” David said.

“Yeah.” Patrick smiled, then kissed him.

“Oh my God.” David pulled away. “Is this the plan?”

“Sorry.” Not sounding very sorry and still smiling, Patrick kissed him again. “I couldn’t think of anywhere else.”

“But—”

“I’m sorry; there was a puddle!” Patrick kissed him again. “Since we had to come back here anyway, I thought we could make the best of it.”

“Why don’t you just _tell_ me these things?”

“Because this is like the fifth time I’ve managed to get you in here just to kiss you without you realizing that was the plan.” Patrick kissed him again, but he was smiling; he was laughing against David’s mouth. “You fall for it literally every time.”

“Why are you _like_ this?”

“My history makes me like this,” said Patrick, backing David toward the make-out space. “My history and my genetics and you; you make me like this.”

“What do _I_ have to do with it?”

“I tried to tell you,” Patrick said, crowding him up against the wall. He kissed David’s cheeks, the corners of his mouth, different parts of David’s face between his words. “At the restaurant, I was trying to tell you: I’ve never been with someone as fun as you are; you make me laugh; you make me happy; you make me so happy, and if you can stand my terrible jokes, I can make you happy too.” Patrick kissed David’s chin, the side of his nose, his temple. “I’ve never smiled as much in my whole life as I have since I met you.”

“Um,” David said, because he didn’t know how to deal with that. He didn’t know how to deal with someone saying things like that to him; people didn’t say things like that to him, and his eyes were burning. Fuck, he really didn’t want to be puffy in front of Patrick, not with him saying things like that, and Patrick liked him because he thought David was _fun_ and being weepy would really ruin that; why did he always want to weep if anyone was nice to him?

Patrick kissed him on the mouth finally, his tongue stroking once hotly along David’s, then pulling away.

Kissing was easier; it was so much easier; David knew how to kiss, so he put himself into it, trying to show Patrick—something, feelings maybe, but something. David teased with his tongue, swiping Patrick’s lower lip, sucking it just enough before releasing it, then kissing Patrick again. Patrick pulled away. “I want to make you come,” he said.

David’s head instantly began to spin. “You mean . . . eventually . . . ?”

“Soon.” Patrick kissed him again, but his hands were pulling at David hoodie, which had several layers that lengthened it to halfway down David’s thighs. “David, right now.”

“Okay. Okay.” David heart had leaped into his throat; it pushed the breath out of him, as well as words he had not previously known he had it in him to say. “Are you sure you don’t need—more time?”

“I don’t want to do everything,” Patrick said, still kissing him, still fumbling with the layers of David’s hoodie. “I just want—I need to see you.” Patrick’s breath caught. “I need to see your face when you come.”

“All right,” David said, because Patrick’s voice was fraught and a little too high. “Can I—you too?”

“Yes, but first I want to . . .” Patrick’s hands were finally under David’s hoodie, fumbling with the fastening on David’s pants under all those layers of fabric. “I’ve never.”

“I know. Let me.” David pulled the hoodie up along with the shirt under it, which was sort of difficult between the struts in the make-out space, but Patrick helped him, pulling both of them over David’s head and away as David got his arms out. 

Then Patrick’s hands were back at David’s pants, unclasping the fastening, pulling down the zip. He gripped the fabric at David’s hips, yanking down—not very nicely, so that most of the front of David’s black stretch silk-blend trunks were revealed, and Patrick was already breathing hard. David had never heard anyone breathe so hard just at the sight of his underwear, even though it was Ermenegildo Zegna, and the back of Patrick’s hand brushed the front of David’s trunks. David was slowly getting thicker, and Patrick made this hungry, helpless sound, leaning into David with his chin over David’s shoulder, as though he couldn’t bear to look at him and touch him at the same time.

The innocence of Patrick was filling David with a kind of terror, because who whimpered just from brushing his hand over someone’s underwear, but then Patrick said, “I want you; I want you,” and put his hand back, palm cupping David’s hardening cock through the silk-blend. Then he moved his hands again, hooking thumbs under the stretched fabric on David’s hips, pulling down, revealing David’s cock.

David was not actually as self-conscious about his cock as he was about many other parts of his body; it was just a cock, mostly unaffected by how many terrible ill-considered Danishes he ate at Café Tropical. David didn’t even like Danishes. He was not small at all but nor was he particularly big, a middling range as far as cocks went, but David was still a little concerned about what Patrick thought—Patrick, who had to have seen plenty of them before; it was difficult to avoid, but had he ever touched someone else’s before? Probably not, and then Patrick was touching it—definitely not.

The tips of Patrick’s fingers brushed the length of it, which was still not quite fully hard. “Is this . . . ?”

“It’s whatever you want,” David said, even though he was kind of dying inside. “Do anything you want.”

“I want.” Patrick’s fingers wrapped around it and stroked, making David’s whole body shudder. 

It had been a while and it was Patrick. It was Patrick, and the fact of that made David harden the rest of the way very quickly; he was already aching for it. He wanted to come so bad he wondered how well he could control it; he was already imagining his come in Patrick’s hand, his come on Patrick’s well-pressed shirt, his come on his own chest with Patrick spreading it around, humping David’s hip as he did so.

“Is it okay?” David asked.

Patrick’s touches were still experimental, thumb swiping over the head, tugging a little. “Yeah,” Patrick said, breath hitching. “It’s—yeah.”

David breathed, trying to get control of himself, not sure what he was saying. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” Patrick took his hand off. “I didn’t bring anything.”

David’s vision went dark for a second; he gripped the struts coming from the wall to prevent himself from snatching Patrick’s hand and forcing it back on him. 

“Any lotion or anything,” Patrick was saying. “I was thinking about this, but I didn’t—I wasn’t really—”

“I don’t need lotion,” David said tightly. 

Patrick touched him again, but then drew away, and fucking _fuck_ —

Patrick held his hand up to David’s face. “Lick it.”

A thrill raced through David cock, and it jumped, but David had to check Patrick’s face to see if Patrick was joking. If Patrick was fucking with him right now David would actually die, and Patrick looked serious but a little bit uncertain, uncertain enough that David wrapped his hand harshly around Patrick’s wrist and brought Patrick’s palm up to David’s tongue, licking it filthily. David wanted it to be hot; he hoped it was hot, looking at Patrick while he licked, fellating between Patrick’s fingers, curling his tongue around the tip of Patrick’s middle finger and drawing it into his mouth, sucking—

“Okay, David,” Patrick said, in a tone of _that’s enough_ , but then his spit-slicked hand was back at David’s cock, wrapping around the base.

David groaned, putting his hands on the struts again. It wasn’t enough; he was going to thrust up into Patrick’s hand, but he didn’t want to; he wanted Patrick to get whatever he wanted; he wanted Patrick to do whatever he wanted; it wasn’t about David. It wasn’t about David; he wished he could be held down; he wished he could be tied up; where were handcuffs when you needed them. David felt along the wall, awkwardly trying to get his arms up in the narrow space; there were struts above his head, and he grabbed onto those instead, leaving himself exposed for Patrick, hands far away as possible.

Patrick was slowly stroking him—sort of inexpertly, but it still felt good. “Is this . . . ?” Patrick began to ask, trailing off, still stroking.

Squeezing his eyes shut, turning his head away, biting his lip so he wouldn’t beg for more, David nodded vigorously. “Mm-hm, anything. Anything.”

“David.” Patrick gripped him tighter and then leaned in, his mouth warm and soft on David’s, his fist pulling at David’s cock, pausing at the head to spread wetness around, then moving down to the root to pull on him again. “It feels good,” Patrick breathed into David’s mouth. “Touching you feels good.”

“Mm-hm,” David agreed.

“David.” Patrick’s breath hitched again, his chin over David’s shoulder again, breathing noisy in David’s ear. “Tell me what you like; tell me what you need.”

“Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”

“I won’t. I can’t. David.” Patrick’s lips pressed hotly against David’s neck. “I always wanted to feel like this.”

“I could touch you,” David gasped. “I could—make you feel so good.”

“I know; keep your hands up there. I love—I love watching you. I love touching you; just let me touch you.”

“Y-yes,” David stuttered, because he was really trying to acknowledge Patrick’s feelings on this subject but it was hard when he really, really wanted to come on Patrick and for Patrick to come on him—inside of him, preferably, but that wasn’t going to happen and David regretted it; he regretted it. “Yes,” he said again. “Please.”

Patrick’s hand tightened, speeding up. “Like that?” 

“Yes,” David panted. “Yes, anything you want.”

“Jesus, David.” Patrick did it harder, pressing in in closer to him. “Stop saying that and tell me what you—”

“Harder,” David said, uncontrollably. “Do it to me harder; fuck me, Patrick; fuck me—”

“Yeah, I’ll fuck you, David,” Patrick whispered, coming in still closer, his hand moving harder, harder, but it was kind of uncoordinated, rhythm faltering, and David could tell he was a beginner, but he could get so good; it would be _so_ good—“I’ll fuck you till you can’t think straight,” said Patrick. “I’ll fuck you so hard.”

David’s hips moved involuntarily; he couldn’t _help_ it; he needed to thrust into Patrick’s hand. “Like that,” he whimpered, “do me just like that, do me, I want you—”

“God, I never thought,” said Patrick, kissing him again. “I never thought it could be like this, I could want anyone like this, I’m—I wanna—fuck. David.”

“Please, don’t stop,” David said, still thrusting into Patrick’s hands, his own hands gripping the struts so tightly it hurt; he wished it could hurt more. He wanted to tell Patrick to hurt him more, but—it wouldn’t be _nice_ —“Keep doing it, don’t stop.”

“Yeah.” Patrick kissed him messily, his other hand down there now, softly touching David’s balls—

“Fuck,” David jerked. “Don’t.”

“David,” Patrick panted. He was fumbling a bit, squeezing David’s balls now.

“Don’t stop,” David said. “Please, please, don’t—”

“Gonna come for me, beautiful?” Patrick squeezed harder. 

“Oh fuck,” David cried, jerking wildly.

“Come in my hand.”

“Say it,” David panted, “again; please, call me—again—”

“Come on and do it for me, baby, I know you can; you’re beautiful.” Patrick kissed him. “You’re so fucking beautiful. Come for me.”

“All right,” David said, bringing his hands down from the struts, and then he came, his hands over Patrick’s because Patrick wasn’t really used to this; it could be surprising, and David didn’t want come to get all over him, even though he wanted come to get all over him. David just helped him, hands brushing Patrick’s and then his own cock in the final thrust, when he was still spurting but Patrick was kind of hesitantly drawing away; then Patrick’s hands came back and they were both messy, but that was fine. That was fine. 

Everything inside of David moved slower for a moment, and he watch Patrick move away without thinking anything about it, just watching. Somewhere in the stockroom Patrick found a box of tissues, grabbing some and wiping his hands, grabbing more and bringing them to David, who was still up against the wall, pleasantly blank. David took the tissues, wiped his hands, tugged his pants up, moved off the wall to throw the tissues in the little waste bin under the work counter. Then he turned and saw Patrick in his Men’s Warehouse blazer and carefully ironed shirt, Patrick who had jacked him off and said _come for me, beautiful_ , Patrick who looked wholesome and clean and proper.

David’s eyes narrowed. His whole being narrowed, blank inside no more, filled again with just one thing and one thing only; David wanted to fuck Patrick up. He wanted to fuck him up very badly. He wanted to make Patrick cry. He wanted Patrick to be a wet, writhing mess.

 _You make me so happy_ , Patrick had said. 

David swallowed, then tried to figure out what to do with his hands—clasped together, no; behind him—maybe behind him so he wouldn’t touch, no; he didn’t know what to do with them. He swallowed again. “Do I still get to,” David began to ask, but it sounded pathetic. “I want,” he said, but still had to start again. “Can I touch you?”

“Yeah, I’m . . .” Patrick blushed, looking away. “It’s gonna be quick.”

“That’s okay,” David whispered, letting his hands out, coming closer. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” Patrick was already breathing harder, his eyes on David’s mouth. “Yes.”

David put his hands on Patrick’s belt buckle, and Patrick’s breathing hitched, David moving forward and Patrick stumbling back a bit. “I’m serious,” Patrick warned, once his back was against the wall in the make-out space.

“Yeah,” David breathed. He got his hand behind the button of Patrick’s slacks and yanked on them to tilt Patrick’s hips a bit, angle them how David wanted them— 

“Jesus, David,” Patrick said, his arms gripping David’s to steady himself.

David got him unbuttoned, then unzipped, his hands in Patrick’s slacks to yank them down.

“Jesus,” Patrick said again.

David pushed up Patrick’s shirt so he could see. Patrick had on blue boxer briefs—Hanes, probably, David’s unhelpful brain supplied—and the outline of him was hard underneath, very hard, and larger than David had allowed to let himself hope. 

“I mean it,” Patrick breathed. “I think—I think I might come the second you touch me.”

“Good,” David murmured, kissing him. “I want you to come all over me.”

Patrick’s hips jerked. “Or the second you—you know—say something like that.”

“Uh-huh,” David said, pulling down Patrick’s briefs much more carefully than David had his slacks, holding up Patrick’s shirt, making sure Patrick didn’t get too much friction, that nothing touched him. Patrick’s cock was thick and curved, achingly red, coarse brown hair at the base with reddish glints, and David’s mouth was literally watering as he looked at it. “Oh,” David said, because he was unprepared. He was so completely unprepared for how much he wanted this; he wanted to drop to his knees right then and swallow it whole.

Patrick’s hips shifted, causing his cock to sway a little. “David.”

“I just . . .” David swallowed. God, he wanted it, but then he looked up at Patrick, who wasn’t smiling, his eyes big and dark, his mouth a little uncertain, and David had to think about Patrick; he had to make it feel good for Patrick. “I’m gonna,” David started to say, but he didn’t know how to explain to Patrick what he was going to do, so he just did it, hand darting out to grab the base of Patrick’s cock roughly and squeeze, so if he came David could try to aim and if he didn’t, David could maybe try to make it last a little longer.

“What,” Patrick said, hips giving a shallow buck.

“Good,” David said, holding Patrick’s cock tightly. “It’s good; you’re good.” Then he brought his other hand up to stroke it, left hand still tight at the base. 

“David.” Patrick jerked and began to pant.

“Does this feel good for you?” David said, still salivating, swallowing. “You’re so thick.”

“Fuck.” Patrick jerked in his hands.

“Is it good; is this what you—”

“David,” Patrick said, clutching David’s arm. He really was close. “I’m gonna—”

“Want, is it what you want, gonna make it good for you,” David said, kissing him.

“David—”

“Wanna make it so good for you,” David said. “You could really fuck me up with this cock.”

“Fuck,” Patrick said. “Yes.” Then he clapped a hand on David’s shoulder and came, and David, who knew what was coming, pressed into him and tried to direct; he wanted it on his chest. He needed it on his chest, all of that hot come, and he was going to really hate himself later because it would be a bitch to clean off, dried into his chest hair, but he really could give so much less of a fuck at that particular moment, he wanted it, Patrick’s come, hot on him. Patrick’s come. Fuck.

Patrick slowly came to a stop, hips juddering, then juddering again, slow, until he was just shaking, and David held him—not too close because of the come on David’s chest, but he petted Patrick’s shoulders, his ribs, kissing him while David’s own mind raced. _I’ll make it last longer next time, I can make it better, you can fuck my throat, I can deep throat like a pro, I can make you like me, I can make you like me._

“Are you okay?” David whispered, pulling back when he thought that Patrick seemed to have recovered. 

“Yeah.” Patrick tiled his head up and kissed him. “Yes. Usually I’m not that—I’m not usually that fast.”

“You were great,” David said quickly.

Patrick’s eyes flicked down to David’s messy chest. “So were you.”

“Um.” David turned away, looking for those tissues to wipe himself; he already regretted doing that. Never mind the mess; he hadn’t thought about how embarrassing it would be. Sometimes he didn’t think. _Poor impulse control_ , said Doctor Leeds.

Patrick caught his hand. “I know all we did was . . . but it’s never been like that for me. It’s never been—anything like that for me. Before.”

“Me neither,” David whispered, but it had been like that for him before, physically, just never . . . was there something he could use to wet a tissue? David moved away to look around. Maybe they had sanitizer in one of the boxes; he couldn’t look at Patrick. He couldn’t look at him. “Do we have moist towelettes?”

Patrick moved around behind David somewhere, but David still couldn’t look at him. “Why would we have moist towelettes?” Patrick said, still rustling.

“I don’t know, for cleaning . . . things.” David pretended to look behind a box, but Patrick caught his hand again.

“I’ll get you a wet cloth,” Patrick said, kissing him briefly on the mouth.

David watched him go in surprise, because Patrick was all tucked in, his pants up, his belt done. David should have helped him—cleaned his cock for him, put him in his underwear, kissed him, maybe, told him how much he liked his cock, how fucking excellent it was, except David had probably made that clear. He’d probably made it clear, hadn’t he; had he made everything clear?

“Here,” Patrick said, coming back through the curtain with wet paper towels. “Let me,” he said, reaching toward David as though to wipe his chest.

“That’s gross,” said David, snatching the cloth out of Patrick’s hand. Like, if Patrick had wanted to _lick_ it off, that might have been different, although it probably still would have been gross with all this hair. Hair made everything grosser.

“Yeah. Gross,” said Patrick, sounding skeptical. 

David didn’t get what was so funny, but then again here he was in the stockroom trying to get come off his chest, so he guessed it was worthy of a joke. When David was as clean as he was going to get without a shower, he threw the towels away, then looked around for his t-shirt before Patrick caught his wrist. “Can we still—make-out?”

David couldn’t help the sudden curve to his mouth, though he tried to push it away. “Yeah,” he said, still looking around. “Yes. I just want my shirt—”

“You don’t need your shirt,” Patrick said, drawing him back into the make-out space.

“My chest is gross.”

“Your chest is hot.”

David looked down at himself in surprise. “Well, it . . . you’ll get—your blazer might get dirty.”

Patrick started taking off his blazer, which wasn’t really what David had intended; if he could just get his shirt on . . . David looked around, but Patrick grabbed his elbow, pulling him into the make-out space, kissing him.

Well, okay.

They kissed for a while, Patrick lips and tongue slow and languorous and lazy, Patrick’s blazer somewhere on the floor. At last Patrick pulled away. “I’m really glad we got back together,” he said, “or this plan would have been a bust.”

“Okay,” David said, trying and failing not to smile. “Did your plan really include—it really included orgasms in the stockroom?”

“I thought a week was long enough.” Patrick smiled against David’s neck. “To see how we fit a little bit better. And you _did_ put up with the Barenaked Ladies thing.”

“But I broke up with you over that.”

“Did you, though? You seemed like you really wanted to make out in this very room while we were ‘broken up.’”

“I feel like you doubt my sincerity,” David told him, running his hands over the starched fabric on Patrick’s back, because damn, he really liked the broadness of Patrick’s back. He really liked the small of Patrick’s back, that private curve. He liked Patrick’s stupid belt, and he put his hands over the seat of Patrick’s stupid slacks. David liked Patrick’s ass, and he pulled him closer.

“I don’t doubt your sincerity when you’re sincere,” Patrick pointed out.

“I’m not sure I know when I’m sincere,” David whispered.

“That.” Patrick smiled. “That was probably sincere.”

“Possibly.” David wasn’t certain.

“I didn’t actually want to—orgasm in the stockroom,” Patrick said, after kissing him again. “Ideally, it would have been in a bed, but getting a motel room in Elmdale seemed—a little much, because I didn’t want to . . .”

“That’s okay,” David said quickly. “You don’t need to. I like—I liked what we did.”

Patrick smiled one of the tender smiles, the one that just turned up the corners of his mouth, but had warmth to it, softness. “I liked it, too. I mean, in case you couldn’t tell from your chest.”

David pulled away to look down at himself in horror. “I got it _mostly_ clean.”

“Mostly.”

David could hear the laughter in Patrick’s voice as he pulled David’s head down to kiss him again.

*

When Patrick rolled up to the motel, it was pretty late. Leaning over, he kissed David good night. “Thank you,” Patrick said when he pulled away. “For tonight.”

“Yep, it was great,” David said brightly. “So, when—um. When are we doing that again?”

Patrick smiled. “My guess is sometime soon. As long as you don’t break up with me again.”

“I didn’t really break up with you.”

“Oh, good to know.”

“I don’t . . . actually usually break up with people. They break up with me.” David winced, because somehow whenever he had to say goodnight to Patrick, the honesty came out, and honesty was honestly a bad look on him.

“I’m not breaking up with you.”

“You can’t promise that.”

“I’m not promising. I’m saying I’m not breaking up with you, and I don’t want to break up with you, and I can’t see breaking up with you any time soon, and all of that is subject to change, because people change. But I don’t want to change right now. I—this is the first time I haven’t wanted to change who I am.”

“That was really nice.”

“It’s true.”

David leaned in and kissed him, because they were dating; it was allowed. He could kiss this man whenever he wanted, and Patrick would like it. He really liked it; it was true. At last David pulled away. “Thank you.”

“Good night, David.”

“Good night, Patrick,” David said, opening the car door and stepping out.

Patrick rolled down the window as David closed the door. “Hey David?”

“Mm?” David leaned in toward the window.

“It’s been one week,” said Patrick.

“No.” David moved away from the door and any possibility of Barenaked Ladies.

“Just think what I’ll do when we hit a month,” called Patrick. “We’ll have to celebrate an anniversary!”

“No!” David stopped to yell back, but Patrick was already pulling out of the parking spot, that big happy smile on his face.

David hated how it made him smile too.

*

When he got back to the motel room, Alexis was on her bed looking at her phone. She did not immediately look up as he entered, and David thought if he moved very quietly toward the bathroom he could—

“How did it go?”

“Why aren’t you asleep?” David asked, making it to the bathroom and shutting the door.

“Oh my God, not another sad shower!”

David flung the door back open. “You know what? I’d be showering even if we did it, so the fact that I shower after a date actually tells you nothing.”

Alexis’s jaw dropped open. “Oh my God, you did it.”

“I didn’t say that! I said—I shower! After dates! Some people want to feel clean!”

“Ew, I don’t want details, David,” Alexis said, going back to her phone.

David shut the door.

*

The lights were off by the time David was done showering, thank God, so David got between the covers in the dark. He was going to sleep really, really well; it wasn’t like what Patrick had done was the best David had ever had, but it had been satisfying, and he’d gotten off even better in the shower, and he couldn’t stop thinking of how Patrick had looked, how hungry and wholesome he had looked.

“Do you still like him?” Alexis asked in the dark.

David’s eyes flew open.

“I’m just asking,” said Alexis. “Patrick, I mean.”

“I literally just had sex with him.”

“But you know how sometimes you sleep with them, and after all that, you know, tension, they’re just like—ew?”

“No, I don’t know,” David said irritably, because Alexis was ruining what had been a pretty great evening. “That doesn’t happen to me; that happens to you.”

“But it must have happened to you _some_ times.”

“Sex makes me want people more, not less.” Oh, great, Alexis was irritating him into honesty, excellent.

“But you’ve slept with so many people, David; it’s not like you cared about all of them.”

David turned to face the wall.

“No,” said Alexis. “Literally. You couldn’t care about all of them.”

“You’re right. If I didn’t know their name, I probably didn’t care about them.”

“Are you saying you cared otherwise? But what about one-nighters? The ones just for fun.”

David wanted to strangle her.

“David, you couldn’t possibly—”

“It makes me feel things, okay?” David snapped. It made him feel cared for and beautiful and even when it didn’t do that, it made him feel useful and desired and good for something; he wanted to be good for something. “Things I don’t ordinarily feel, and I am aware I have problems, except this time it’s not a problem, so can you just shut up for once!”

A silence followed. “Well,” Alexis said at last, “you’re not the only one with problems, David.”

She sounded condescending. She was trying to sound condescending so that it wouldn’t sound like she was talking about her own problems, and she was upset again. She was so upset; that was why this conversation was happening, and he wanted to ask her about Ted, except Alexis should not talk about Ted. Getting away from Ted was the only good thing for herself she’d ever done on her own, and he was really proud of her, that she had seen that that was not healthy; he never would have been able to do that. Never.

So David searched for something else to say to her, but it wasn’t as though he could ask her how her day had been. Alexis didn’t have anything since she’d quit that job. It was the best thing she’d ever done, but it had also ruined her. David threw himself back on his back to roll over, then face her in the dark. “Do you want me to find you a tutor?”

“What?”

“For your pretests,” said David. “Do you want me to find you a tutor?”

“David!” she said, sounding surprised and disappointed. “You’re in a relationship.”

David tried to think that through. “Okay I’m confused,” he said at last. “What does finding you a tutor have to do with—”

“You’ve slept with every tutor I ever had.”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Um, yes, you have.”

“I only slept with—” David stopped to count—“two of them.” He thought about Alexis’s math tutor in the Porsche; even though it had only been a blow job, it technically counted if he was going to count what he had done tonight with Patrick as a win. “Okay, three of them. Only three of them.”

“What about Helga?”

“I counted her.”

“Okay, what about Mr. Malinski?”

“Ew,” said David. “No.”

“What about Alistair?”

“You slept with Alistair, not me!”

“We both slept with Alistair!”

“Ugh! Alexis! Do you really think I’d sleep with someone after you did?”

“You slept with Pedro!”

“Well. Everybody’s slept with Pedro.”

That brought the rapid-fire to a close, and David hated the echo of it in the dark room. Why were they so awful? Both of them were so awful. And Mom and Dad were awful, but not like this; they had always been faithful to each other. Dad loved Mom so, so much. Mom wouldn’t have been able to survive this hell of a world without him.

“I’m not like that any more,” Alexis said, obviously thinking of the same things.

David hated how she sounded. “I know.”

“I don’t want to be like that any more.” Alexis’s voice was even more quiet, and David hated it even more.

“I know,” he gulped.

Then Alexis didn’t say anything, and David was crying, but he knew she was not. Alexis hardly ever cried for real, though she used to fake it all the time. She was like Dad, and David didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know what to do; it wasn’t like he could hold her, because they never did that except for that one time, and even then, it had been awkward. It would probably make her feel worse, because here he had had this—ridiculous day with a guy he was really into sending him flowers, and Alexis had spent so many hours of it here, alone.

At times like this, stupid things internet things were required, so David grabbed his phone, but he couldn’t even think of what to look at. David touched the text app, then touched Patrick’s name, which revealed mostly all the lyrics to “One Week.”

 **David:** Can you help me with alexis

 **Patrick:** What’s wrong

 **David:** Just need to distract her. Celeb goss or dumb quizzes or memes help  
**David:** Anything just send me a dumb tweet or something

 **Patrick:** Sorry that might take a while not really my wheelhouse

“Some people are trying to sleep,” Alexis said. David had already turned all the alerts off, but of course she knew he was on his phone; its light was bright in the dim room.

 **Patrick:** I don’t really get how twitter works

 **David:** Perfect can you ask alexis to help you set up an account

 **Patrick:** Right now?

 **David:** y

“Ugh!” said Alexis, putting her pillow over her head. “Sleep, David!”

 **Patrick:** What happens when she asks why you’re not helping me do it

 **David:** lie

 **Patrick:** Ok but I’m not really ready for her to be on my facebook

 **David:** No why do you have fb

 **Patrick:** Because everyone does?

 **David:** That’s wrong

 **Patrick:** I texted her

David glanced over at Alexis, who still had her pillow over her head. “Patrick said he texted you,” David said.

“I am trying to _sleep_ ,” said Alexis.

 **David:** Do you have an insta

 **Patrick:** no

 **David:** Can you ask her to help you with that too

There was a pause, then David’s phone lit up again.

 **Patrick:** done

“He said he texted you again,” said David.

“Ugh.” Ripping the pillow off of her head, Alexis flipped over, grabbing her phone. “What _for_?”

 **Patrick:** Is it going to be a problem I’m never going to use Instagram or twitter

 **David:** You’ll use insta I’m on it  
**David:** I take amazing photos

“Aw, what a muffin!” Alexis crooned, looking at her phone now too.

“What did he say?” David asked.

“Like a little—a little pumpkin muffin!”

 **David:** What did you say to her

 **Patrick:** What you told me to

 **David:** I told you to lie

 **Patrick:** so

 **David:** So what lie?

 **Patrick:** I’m a muffin

 **David:** Yes I know a pumpkin muffin what lie

There wasn’t any answer, but Alexis was still on her phone.

 **David:** What lie  
**David:** patrick

David waited, rolling back over in bed so that he wouldn’t have to see Alexis texting Patrick.

 **David:** patrick

 **Patrick:** I can’t text with both of you at once and it’s late  
**Patrick:** I have to be there early tomorrow

 **David:** why

 **Patrick:** Check on the fridge

David turned back to check on Alexis, who was lit up by the light of her phone. She had a little smile on, her thumbs moving over her phone.

 **David:** Keep texting her. I’ll open tomorrow and check on the fridge

 **Patrick:** It’s your day off 

**David:** Don’t make me say it again. She’s smiling I’m going to sleep  
**David:** I set my phone I’ll open tomorrow

*

The following morning David found another text from Patrick.

 **Patrick:** I can't believe I found you 

Even though David had to wake up early the next day and work on his day off, he thought it was worth it. He’d had a really great week.


End file.
